


Matters of the Spark

by snsoldier



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform, Multiple Timelines, Sparkling abuse, Sparklings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-03-17 16:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 47,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3536723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsoldier/pseuds/snsoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/U. In the midst of the chaos of an unexpected attack everyones lives are thrown topsy turvy. Defensor is sidelined while the protectobots find themselves guarding the most unexpected of guests and Jazz's past comes back with a vengeance in a most unexpected... relationship? Sparklings in the present bring back decisions from the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost

Mechs scrambled about madly amidst the chaos, scuffed metal frames bathed in the warm pulsing red throb of the emergency lights, while the sirens blared and droned out the curses of anger, shouted orders, and cries of confusion and panic. Explosions could be heard above them and felt through the floors, and the fear laced cries rose and fell with the tremors of the walls themselves as the aftershocks were felt even in the deepest depths of the bunkers.  
  
This wasn't like other attacks.  
  
Other attacks you heard the war above, but didn't feel it pulsing through the bunkers like a living being intent on swallowing them. Casualties were those who chose to fight, or who were foolish enough to stray too far from the bunkers to make it back in time when the first proximity sirens went off.  
  
This time their safe niche buried deep beneath the surface of Iacon wasn't so safe. This time the dark wasn't warm and comforting. It didn't shroud them from the attacks like a warm forcefield. This time it threatened to never let them leave and brought up terrifying recharge tales of Unicron gobbling up mechs by the thousands.  
  
This time Galvatron was psychotically intent on deactivating them all.  
  
It pierced him with the irony. Mechs had finally felt safe enough to return to Cybertron. The Prime had returned. Mechs wanted to rebuild. There had been beautiful speeches given for the masses on protection and safety, that they should think about the future and families and actually living again. Mechs had cheered and flocked to Iacon, not so much because they believed the words or the mechs spouting them, but because they so desperately wanted to believe that they could come home and that it would be true. Life could finally go on.  
  
He wasn't one of the mechs who had returned. He'd always been here, albeit in a very sheltered position as Magnus' scout.  
  
Wheelie pressed his back against the command room wall, feeling ridiculously small and helpless as Ultra Magnus barked orders. Or at least, he thought he was barking orders. His mouth moved, and the mechs closer to him bolted about with an intensity that belied the fear he himself felt. They were driven by the authority of command and blindly trusted that doing as their commander said would bring them out of this alive.  
  
Scouts didn't get that confidence. Scouts were drilled incessantly to hide, never be spotted, never be heard, and always come back without anyone ever knowing you were there.  
  
That meant no heavy plating to weigh you down and increase the sound every movement made. No weapons to risk dropping or creating any type of detectable energy signature that might give you away. No powerful turbo charged engines to roar to life with unbridled speed when you drove off.  
  
Light. Compact. Quiet. That was the definition of a scout.  
  
Nothing like the frontliners who bolted about with grimly narrowed optics. They had plating thicker than his entire arm to protect them from blows, and weapons that would leave no trace of his ever having been there. They gobbled up their orders and flung themselves into the melee because even if they wanted to hide, they never would be able to. Magnus was their commander. His job was to know how to win. Following him would keep them alive. That was the very spark beat of a frontliner.  
  
But they hadn't even seen this coming.  
  
One minute Blaster had been chatting with Jazz over a secure comm line as the shuttle approached, and the next the line had gone quiet.  
  
Just interference from the moon my mechs.  
  
Nothing to worry about my mechs.  
  
But Jazz had seemed to stare just a little too intently at the view screen when the shuttle finally came within visual range. Just a little too quietly.  
  
Magnus had noticed too. That was the last thing he had really noticed. Magnus crossing the room and leaning over Jazz's shoulder to stare at the shuttle.  
  
Then the whole world seemed to rock from the explosions. The security feeds across the compound showed the horrified expressions of mechs in their final kliks, their faces contorting into impossible configurations of pain as plasma blasts tore through plating like paper. Even then, the empty shells seemed to stumble a few more steps before they would crumple to the ground or be slagged by another explosion.  
  
It was almost as if they didn't quite believe they were deactivated, and that maybe, if they kept trying, it would not be true.  
  
One of the wreckers streaked across one screen, vanished from view, and reappeared on the next screen, this time a severed arm in one hand. Wielded like a club, he slammed it into another con's head, and only then was the decepticon brand visible on the shoulder.  
  
The second con crumpled to the ground to join his armless brother in the well.  
  
He should know their names. It was wrong not to know their names. Not knowing their names was like dismissing them as drones, and the thought of his own frame being discarded like a nameless drone terrified him beyond words. He should look away. He should turn and take shelter in the lower bunker with the other non-combat mechs. He should do anything but stare at these screens that flashed death and destruction so casually.  
  
No one should be that nonchalant about death.  
  
Two front liners he recognized from Tyger Pax darted across screens. In and out of smoke and fire, here on this screen one klik, on another the next. They were a red and yellow blur smeared with the blues and purples of spilled energon and what struck him just then was that he never actually saw them in combat with a decepticon.  
  
He only saw less and less of the yellow and red, and more of the blue and purple.  
  
_/I have a visual... gonna try and get in through the upper docking hatch.../_  
  
Slingshot and Silverbolt had caught up to the shuttle which was careening full speed in descent, no apparent pilot at the helm. They obstinately ignored the orders screamed back at them to abandon their rescue attempt and get back to the fight to save mechs who could still be saved.  
  
More destruction. More deactivation. Not just good mechs. _Great_ mechs. The kind that meant the difference between winning and losing. Not mechs like him. Mechs like Kup and Magnus. Mechs who were the subjects in history, the shapers of the future, and the navigators of the course of wars. They wrote the future from the adversities of the present instead of just trying to survive them.  
  
Another explosion, and his HUD briefly flashed a warning about an EM flux that he didn't have time to read before everything went dark.

  


* * *

  


"SLAG OFF!" Slingshot screamed into his comm before he cut the lines. No one would tell him who was and wasn't worth rescuing. _Ever._  
  
Especially now.  
  
He was supposed to have been on that shuttle. He was supposed to have been to one to have gone as backup air support just in case. At the last minute though Hoist had requested Superion's assistance with some riskier than usual demolition.  
  
Springer had volunteered to take his place.  
  
He had protested, but Silverbolt had agreed that it was the best use of their resources. Springer could provide aerial backup if needed, and Superion would muscle through what only a gestalt team could. So Springer had taken his place. Instead of him lying in there victim to whatever fate they had shared, it was Springer.  
  
_/Going for it.../_  
  
Slingshot swung down to a position slightly below the shuttle in case his brother needed a rescue. Completely unnecessary as Silverbolt timed his transformation sequence flawlessly, and landed in his root mode in a kneeling position on the roof, bracing himself against the wind with one hand as he struggled to open the emergency hatch.  
  
_/Running out of runway bro.../_  
  
_/The fragging piece of scrap is jammed... New plan.../_  
  
Slingshot swung back up and above them, and watched as Silverbolt stood carefully, seeming to surf upon the top of the shuttle. The team leader's massive frame was so comically disproportionate to the transport that Slingshot nearly laughed. Silverbolt meanwhile had dug his large black fingers into the shuttle's plating, gouging deep holes in it, and used that handhold to forcibly pry the hatch up from the hull.  
  
_/Get in!/_  
  
He didn't bother answering through the gestalt link. He was already feeling anxious with his other brothers' nervous tension urging him on from behind them in Iacon. The three of them had wordlessly nudged the two of them towards the damaged shuttle in silent support before they had darted out to join in the incoming fray.  
  
Air Raid and Fireflight were struggling to contain their excitement from the bond and he could almost feel Skydive's reprimanding gaze trying futilely to remind them to curb their glee at the adrenaline rush. Gestalt teams didn't get to participate in war as their separate units all that often, and Superion wasn't as explosive as those two loose lug nuts would have liked. It was win-win as far as those two were concerned: let their brothers save a couple mechs they all really liked and respected while they got to really cut loose and blow slag the frag up to pit and back.  
  
Instead, he simply wagged his wings at Silverbolt in acknowledgement, angled his nose up to gain a bit more altitude then dove through the hatch, transforming in a blur of steel and crimson as he went.  
  
The jet landed on his feet with a solid thud, and felt the shuttle rock in response.  
  
_/Still here. Gonna 'form and line up my hatch./_  
  
_/Roger that./_  
  
With the knowledge that his brother was still secure on the roof, he turned his attention back to the battle scarred interior. The air was thick with acrid black smoke, and golden sparks hissed and spat as they burst out in sporadic showers from the darkness.  
  
His spark twinged as he cautiously stepped forward into the black. Vents hissed pressurized air at him, and electricity crackled over smashed panels as he passed. It was a flying-  
  
He stumbled and yelped as he stopped his fall by grabbing ahold of a scalding panel, searing two joints together from the heat.  
  
"Fraggin'..." The string of expletives died in his throat though.  
  
He had tripped over a body.  
  
A body missing half its torso.  
  
The paint was black and charred from having been near one of the panels when it must have exploded, and his spark fluttered coldly in his chamber as he reached down and gingerly rolled the mech over to see who it was.  
  
A purple emblem greeted him and he vented in relief.  
  
From the looks of the rest of him, Prowl's acid pellets had gotten him before the console's explosion had. Tough luck for him, the rotten fragger had it coming.  
  
He turned and stepped forward again, gingerly toeing the debris on the floor to the side to check for other bodies. Another con... part of the wall the cons had burst in through... some... thing... maybe it had once been a mech but now he couldn't tell and was afraid what he might find out about it if he stopped to really examine it... A mini-con...  
  
"No fraggin' way..." He leaned forward to identify the little bot and jumped as his brother's voice startled him.  
  
_/Running out of time 'Shot... Find any survivors or what?/_  
  
_/Not yet... but I think Soundwave actually left one of his cassettes behind./_  
  
_/... No fraggin' way!/_  
  
_/It's not pit slag bro... Little guy's right here... Can't be one of Blasters... They all stayed home./_ Slingshot leaned down and nudged the little bot, then started as doing so brought a familiar shade of red into view.  
  
_/'Shot, what's wrong?/_ Air Raid's tone was sharp as he shoved at the bond, the tumultuous wave of his brother's reaction slamming into them all despite the distance.  
  
_/'Bolt, where is he? What happened? Has he been hurt?/_ Skydive's nudge was laced with concern.  
  
_/No clue... I can't get the hatch open enough to get through.../_  
  
_/I'm heading over to you two./_  
  
_/NO! Don't! Just stay there... I'm coming out.../_ Slingshot hastily shoved his brothers back out of his private space. He had to think... He had to figure this out... He had to...  
  
_/Come ON 'Shot! This coffin's going down!/_  
  
Silverbolt was about to release his docking clamps and transform to try and find another way in when he felt his brother fling something into his hatch.  
  
_/GO!/_  
  
His clamps unlocked and Silverbolt lurched. His brother hadn't transformed but was hanging one handed from his docking clamp. _/What the frag are you doing?!/_  
  
_/Gun it. Ratchet. NOW./_  
  
His brother was blocking them all. Silverbolt frowned and gave him an angry shove before gunning his thrusters as high as they would go. At least if he wanted a medic then someone had to be alive.  
  
Some _one._  
  
There wasn't enough weight to account for more than one mech. The gestalt leader clamped down tightly on that thought to keep it from spilling out across the link. Their brothers didn't need to be distracted with fears over who had and hadn't made it out.  
  
_/Just stop squirming... You're throwing off my balance./_  


* * *

  
The auxiliary medbay was in chaos when the three remaining arial bots straggled in. Air Raid was limping between his brothers from a torn aileron, yet still swung his head about scouring the far corners of the crowded room for his other two brothers. They all did. An aide waved them towards the left and they joined the large group of bots waiting to be triaged. Most were survivable scrapes and bangs at this point.  
  
They all tried not to look at the lumps hidden beneath a white sheet scattered here and there. Or at least not longer than was needed to determine if it was a winged frame or not.  
  
They were all poor sparks who had never stood a chance.  
  
Mechs darted here and there with cobbled together first aid kits that they used to try and stabilize or repair those they had the limited skill to help while the handful of remaining medics struggled with the more severely injured.  
  
Here and there a snippet of conversation would drift back towards them: a name they knew, one they didn't, a casualty estimate... Nothing that was reassuring in the slightest. Air Raid tugged his bothers closer, and they both readily complied. Neither of them was feeling all that confident just then either.  
  
A black and white mech darted past, skidded to a halt, and came back to them.  
  
"Hey Groove."  
  
"Hey... You okay?" He gestured towards Air Raid's leg and the mech shrugged it off with his usual bravado.  
  
"You shoulda seen the other seeker."  
  
"Ah... Well... I'm probably glad that I didn't..." He replied softly as he ran a quick scan then tapped on the medical port on the jet's upper leg. "Open up and I'll pop in a blocker. Can't do much else. You're probably gonna have to tough it out for a few orns before they'll be able to get you in to the repair bay for that one."  
  
"Yeah I figured that. Hey..." He hesitated and watched as Groove plugged the blocker into his port and re-sealed his plating before he continued. "You haven't seen 'Bolt and 'Shot have you?"  
  
Groove blinked in surprise, obviously confused that they didn't already know the answer to that. "Over there on berth 12. Silverbolt is fine... Slingshot is gonna need some work but it's nothing that will deactivate him. You should go join them. It might calm him down."  
  
"They're both right here?" Even Skydive was unable to fully conceal the shock in his vocalizer. It was pretty hard for a gestalt to hide from their brothers, and even harder when you were in the same room. Groove knew that better than any other bot.  
  
"Hey..." He called softly after them as they stood and helped Air Raid limp across the room. "Thank them again... For bringing Aid back... I mean even... I know Ratchet'll figure something out..."  
  
Frag. They'd almost forgotten First Aid had been on the transport. But that had to mean they were alive at least...  
  
The three seekers nodded silently before resuming their slow weave across the room towards berth 12. When they arrived, they were even more shocked by what they saw.  
  
Slingshot was leaning back against the berth hooked up to two drips and several blockers. One arm was curled forward as though he had been cradling something against his chest, and that something had apparently fused every joint from his elbow to his fingertips in place. The plating all along the interior of his arm was deformed and scorched as though he had been trying to hold onto molten slag, and half of his chest plate had been melted. The bright red actually ran in thick rivulets down his front and side almost like candle wax, and in more than a few places, his interior compartment was visible through holes in the underplating.  
  
Most shocking of all, their brother was just lying there as though he hadn't even noticed any of it and was staring at the doors to one of the critical care units as though staring hard enough might somehow grant him the ability to see right through the wall.  
  
_"I know Ratchet'll figure something out..."_  
  
Did that mean everyone on the shuttle had been subject to whatever had done this?  
  
A commotion from behind startled them all, and Silverbolt turned and finally noticed the three of them standing there as Wheeljack skidded around the corner, his arms full of parts and devices for Primus only knew what, and nearly collided with the door. He had barely slowed down enough to give it time to open enough to let him through, and the few seconds they were parted gave them just enough of a glimpse to know that whatever was going on in that room, it was redefining chaos to the medical staff.  
  
"Hey."  
  
That was all their team leader said before he pulled the three of them in close for a long hug before stepping back to help Air Raid sit up on the berth beside Slingshot. He grinned weakly at them at gave them a thumbs up before he pulled his brother up against him in a reassuring snuggle.  
  
"I'm not hurting you am I?"  
  
"Nah Raid. I can't feel a thing right now. Ratchet slapped in a few blockers then decided to just slag it and shut off my entire sensory net instead."  
  
"What the frag happened...?" Skydive murmured as he gingerly traced a finger over one of the cooled rivulets of steel that dribbled down his brother's side.  
  
"I think..." Slingshot frowned and turned his gaze back towards the closed doors across from them. "I think... It was Prowl..."


	2. Found

"Over here!"

Without hesitation, Jazz turned and abandoned the mech he was walking beside and scrambled over the debris to where Sideswipe was trying to shift a portion of the wall that he had broken down with his pile drivers. As the black and white approached, he spied what had caught the frontliner's attention. A black hand was just peeping out from under the remaining portion of the wall and flexed its fingers repeatedly at them to try and get their attention.

Skidding to a stop, Jazz reached down and clasped the mech's hand. The fingers dug into his hand in panicked relief and threatened to damage his relays for a moment, then went lax and gave them a thumbs up. He knew they were there now, and that in itself was probably the most deliriously relieving news he'd had in a long time.

"Over here Jets!"

Jetfire nodded and carefully picked his way across the rubble then knelt down beside Jazz. "On three... one... two..." With a grunt, the double frame shifted and lifted the wall high enough for one of the minibots to wriggle under. The little mech's tinny voice came back to them muffled as he assessed the way the other was pinned.

"Hey there mech. Just sit back and relax. Pit mech that's an unlucky gash. Vocalizer looks ok though. Just the connections took the hit it looks like. Just so long as y'don't glitch ol' Hatchet you'll get fixed up right quick. We'll have you outta here in just a few clicks. Bad news that the building came down. Good news though is that the bunkers held up in spite of it all so almost all the civvies are up and about now. Cons got their afts handed to them in the end too. Got a few hanging out here on our side now so don't fritz if y'see one. Haven't really had time to remove their emblems yet y'know."

Jazz sighed mentally. The minibot was one pit of a chatterbox. It didn't phase the mech one byte that his conversational partner was currently mute. He had working audials, and honestly, even that probably wouldn't have phased him Jazz mused.

"S'ok now. Detached his left pede cuz it's way back under there but the rest o' him can slide on out now."

Jazz nodded at Jetfire and the mech lifted the wall higher until he could slide one leg under and help prop it up on one knee. Jazz and Siseswipe both crouched low and reached an arm into the gap until they each felt the trapped mech lock on and then slowly pulled until the filthy blue mech came into view.

"Bolts and blasters Blur! How in the pit did you not think to get out from under a falling wall in time?" Sides blurted, then grimaced as Jazz kicked him in the shin and glowered angrily at him. Was the mech really that dense?

The command room. Full of mechs. Wall probably took 4-5 seconds to come down, and in that time frame the overlocker could likely go in and out 6 or 7 times. Odds are Blur got caught in the collapse while going back in to help get other mechs out.

For his part though, Blur managed a half-slagged grin and just shrugged as he accepted the front liner's assistance and draped his arm over the sturdy red frame. His face said it all though as he took in the wide expanse of ruins that stretched out far beyond the confines of what had once been the command center.

Wordlessly, Jazz sent the mech a databurst of the current known status of all mechs before he picked his way over the rubble back to his aide. Sides would handle it from here. He didn't want to be around when the poor slagger processed all the names he knew off of it. He just couldn't handle the way mechs turned and looked at him afterwards, as though somehow being in charge gave him some sort of cosmic power to take the hurt away or make the news any less true than it already was.

Jazz sighed and ran a hand over his visor. His vision was started to flux on him and he knew he couldn't keep running on empty like this for very much longer. The command center was only one of many piles of rubble. The one relief was that the majority of mechs they pulled out from here, while dazed and in need of some recalibration, were nothing more than dirty and scuffed.

At least that was one thing he could thank Primus for today.

His aide was a mech he didn't really know - a nail volunteer - and had resumed updating him on something... Oh right, the injured list. They'd already gone over the casualty list and there had been far too many names he had known intimately on it.

Some he still just couldn't believe.

The undauntable. The invincible. The unfathomable.

But Prime's last order to him rang in his audials.

"The living come first."

Medical supplies for the injured first, then energon and emergency shelter for the able bodied. 

Search and rescue to save all they could, and then clean up so that those left could go back to pretending their lives might one day be normal again.

Another mech darted up with another pad for him, saluted, and bolted back to whatever corner he had materialized from. Every team was clamoring for more help and even for the few minutes it took to drop off a data pad, a mech's absence was painfully felt.

Galvatron had fallen.

And for good measure, Jazz had personally seen him dumped unceremoniously into the slag pits. Primus could slag him for it later for the blasphemy of sending off a mech without the proper ceremony and speeches. He wasn't going to be taking any chances anytime soon. They had thought they were done with Megatron and look where that had gotten them. Then they thought they were done with Starscream and the miserable glitch had reappeared like nothing had even happened. This time he would be certain that this fragger would not be back. If the minions of Unicron wanted to find a way to filter out a mech's dissolved molecules from a sea of molten slag, then let them have at it. At the very least, it wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

Thankfully the seekers had all scattered once he had dropped. He didn't expect to see them on the battlefield any time soon. It was fairly common knowledge that the Vosians and Shockwave were not on the friendliest of terms, and he was the most likely to try and pick up the torch now. He would have to make a note to talk to Hoist about plans for rebuilding Vos. If he could get that leaked out into the rumor mill, and then have the concrete plans to back it up, Thundercracker would probably approach them about a treaty.

At least he hoped it would be TC. Mech was probably one of the sanest of that winged lot since Megatron got to them.

And as for Shockwave, it would be a weak torch for him to wave with the Decepticon forces so divided. A handful had already defected, and were assisting in the medbay as a sign of their good will. It was a bit frightening he had to admit, and he was not about to let any one of them near his frame any time soon, but patching up damage they'd done and apologizing to the mechs they'd done it to was a pretty big step. And did he just hear that correctly?

"What was that last part?"

Surprised, the mech paused to tab back up. "Optimus announced the funeral to be scheduled for last light."

* * *

 

Joors later, Sideswipe limped into one of the few standing buildings. His frame was filthy and he would have given anything for a wash, but right now the washracks and those limited resources were reserved for the exclusive use of the injured and the medical staff tending them. Hard to fix a mech whose covered in slag, and even harder to do if you're covered in slag yourself. He understood that.

The murderous look on his brother's face though as he raised a hand in greeting told him that Sunny most definitely did not feel the same. If the ban lasted much longer his twin would probably maim his own frame just to be able to wash it.

He nodded at the stores mech as he handed him his ration, and gratefully sank into the chair beside his brother before he gulped it down.

"Primus that swill tastes good after today."

"Hmph."

"Any word?"

"None."

"Unicron be damned." He sighed in frustration and frowned at the table across from them. Wheeljack had left the Doom Room as it had been dubbed by those denied access for the first time in almost seven orns.

Seven orns.

And none of them still knew anything about the shuttle crew. First Aid had to be alive. His brothers sure as pit wouldn't be rushing about helping the way they were if the gestalt bond had been broken. They weren't saying anything either though.

In fact, when Cliffjumper had pressed them for more information Hot Spot had all but openly told him that he would viciously murder him in his recharge if he tried to goad them into endangering anyone by leaking classified information.

He'd never heard such a large group of bots get that quiet that fast before.

It worried him though. A medical status that was classified? Sure that made sense with the Prime and all since if he went down morale would be slagged, and if it leaked he were critical then of course some pitspawn son of an unbonded mate of Unicron would be sure to try to sneak in and finish the job.

Springer maybe... Telling the wreckers he was dead might result in some wild fights.

Prowl sure... Telling everyone that the mech who planned every successful offensive and arranged the best damned defense was dead could cause some mass hysteria.

But the rest? Ironhide was a good guy and all but really Prime and Ratchet would be the most upset. Aid was adorable but again, just a medic. They'd lost those before plenty. 'Jack could probably engineer a new fifth for the team and while it would hurt to lose their friend they wouldn't die either as long as the other four bonds stayed strong. Blaster was a fun mech but again, only his symbiotes would really suffer.

And he'd seen Rewind with Chrome earlier and the mechlet had seemed fine.

So then what the slag was going on back there?

"In case you were wondering, he came in less than a joor ago and as you can see, didn't last more than a few clicks."

"Yeah?" Sides frowned. The engineer was passed out in recharge at his table. His shoulders were hunched forward with his helm on the table and his vocalizer lights flickered on and off steadily with a staticky feedback. Mech was so spent he hadn't even fully booted down into recharge if those were still on. One hand was curled around a half empty cube, and a trickle of energon traced its way from his mouth plates to the table's surface.

Before when he'd left the room it was only long enough to grab a tray of cubes, some supplies from his lab, and then rush back. No one had seen Perceptor or Ratchet in all this time.

"You know, it was Hoist and Chromedome who patched up Prime. Ratchet didn't even come out for that."

Sides gaped. "How did you hear that? Ratch has been Prime's medic since the orn of his inauguration. Slag it, I thought the two were fraggin' on the side to boot!"

"Yeah it has the whole medical bay in an uproar. Mechs are whispering about some new contagion, or the cons using some new form of biological warfare."

"Slag it even Megatron agreed that was overstepping it after cosmic rust got out."

"Yup."

"What do you think?"

"I think even Silverbolt isn't strong enough to carry six mechs to safety. Couple mechs say they saw Slingshot hanging off him in root mode when they came in. What I don't get is why they just won't fragging tell us already who is and isn't offlined."

Sides frowned as the low bass of the meeting siren began its mournful wail.

Last light.

"Maybe Prime will tell us now..."

* * *

 

Optimus rose stiffly, while Jetfire followed dutifully by his side to steady the mech as he slowly ascended to the podium. The Autobot leader's optics were pale and what little that remained of his paint was crisscrossed with erratic weld marks, scuffs and dents. Once again, he had adamantly refused any aesthetic repairs until every bot that served under him was fully repaired.

Every Autobot knew it was his chosen penance to continue to suffer as he felt he had caused them to suffer. He stood while others did not, and each spark returned to the well took a small piece of his own with them each and every time. It made no difference to him that those mechs had chosen to fight for him. The fact that they died was his burden and his alone.

The civilians who had gathered with the soldiers were quietly awed. Humbled by what they perceived him as physically enduring, and heartened by his strength and resolve even in the face of such desolation. They admired his strength and were drawn to his grief.

He was a leader who understood why they were afraid of the war and what pained them most about it.

From the podium, Optimus nodded his gratitude to Jetfire, who stepped back slightly in a mostly futile attempt to be less obtrusive. There weren't many places a double frame could hide, and inconspicuous was probably the last word that anyone would have used to describe one.

"My... friends. I am first and foremost grateful to see you all gathered here. Your faces and frames are my reassurance that we will continue to persevere. The losses we have endured today... for millennia... cannot continue. We persevered despite corruption. We stood resolute against Megatron."

His optics lowered for a long moment before he continued softly. "Even in my long absence, you were firm in your beliefs and strong in your convictions. You rallied with Ultra Magnus even though you knew not what had become of the Ark... Myself... The Matrix. Your strength during those dark eons, the strength of the very core of Cybertron itself, is our greatest strength now."

"That strength is being tried to its utmost today. When we are so close to that which our sparks have yearned for and desired for so very long: home. A Cybertron vibrant with lights and life as it once was, all mechs united under the protection of our twin moons and the blessing of Primus. No more factions. Units. Classes. Ranks. No more need for any of those things which have divided us. Only mechs. Good mechs. Mechs who see the peace which lies just over the horizon and which we will soon find within our grasp and never release."

A murmur of approval rippled through the crowd like a breath of wind across the surface of water and the weary leader paused for a moment as his thoughts wandered. How strange, that here on Cybertron, with no organic life in sight, presiding over one of his dearest friend's funeral, he would think of an Earth analogy.

"This is what many of us gathered here today became Autobots for. It is what he led so many of you for. His guidance was a immovable beacon in a darkness that he seemed oblivious to himself. There was always the finish line planned into his every maneuver. He saw life as a series of goals and the paths and the sacrifices necessary to make it to them, and he saw our Cybertron reborn at the end of every one of those paths."

The silence hung for several moments as every mech thought about their own memories of their planet and their own dreams of what they hoped it would soon become. Every mech there had lost in so many different ways that were all equally painful. They all understood the empty hole that would hang unfilled in their spark chambers as they continued on and saw those outcomes which others had not.

They all knew of at least one mech they believed to be more deserving of survival.

They all knew of a better mech who hadn't.

"It is therefore, with a heavy spark, that I commit the frame of our beloved comrade to the slag from which it once came. Till all are one."

"Till all are one" echoed off the lips of every mech there as they watched the pulleys release and the platform with the grayed frame disappeared down into the molten sea of slag.

It was only the first.

There were so many more to come.


	3. Oops

Groove was the first to arrive in the medbay, and hesitated as he saw that for the first time in nearly two full groons Ratchet was outside of the Doom Room. His back was towards him and slumped in absolute exhaustion and the scout could easily see that every one of the old medic's joints and seams appeared to be out of alignment.

Primus, the mech really had been charging in torturous ways when he charged at all.

Every fifth or sixth orn Perceptor would stumble out, collapse on the nearest berth and charge soundly. Wheeljack had been a bit more regular in coming out to charge at one of the medbay berths, which had only made everything even more confusing. What kind of accident needed a coding specialist more than an engineer to repair the damage done?

Again he reached out through the bond with the same result as all of their previous attempts.

First Aid was there, yet _not_ there.

He could feel his brother's spark, feel his emotions, yet not actually be able reach through to him without actually encountering any true blocks. Or at least nothing that he recognized as being a block. Even stranger, it almost felt like Aid didn't quite know that they were there. Not one of them had felt him reach back out for them.

When he had first come online they had all known instantly. The radiating waves of fear and pain had resulted in the four remaining protectobots practically disassembling the bay door to try and get in and comfort him once they had gotten over their initial processor shock locks. It had taken nearly two dozen bots to drag them all away, and they'd spent nearly three groons in the brig trying to tear down those walls before Ratchet had commed them and begged them to trust him and wait.

It had been agony, but at least they knew Aid was there.

The pain had eased as the medic had promised.

The fear dissipated slowly.

Then the oddly intermittent emotional spikes had begun.

Security.

Joy.

Contentment.

Glee.

Just what the feck were they doing in there with him? And what was it that they weren't allowed to be in on it until now?

"Hang in there my mech." Groove started in surprise as Jazz clapped a hand on his shoulder then continued to move soundlessly across the room to join Ratchet and Prime. Frag that mech could move like a ghost. He was worse than Mirage, because at least Mirage you could console yourself with the thought that he had already been there but had been invisible. Jazz was always sneaking up in plain sight for anyone to see.

Prime looked up at him as Jazz approached, and weakly raised a faded hand in greeting before he turned back to his two officers.

Primus he looked slagged. Would Aid look worse?

The doors whooshed behind him and he turned to see Hot Spot and Streetwise. His brothers were both smiling, and their posture was relaxed, but there was no fooling him. They were as anxious as he was to finally be let in to see Aid.

With a nod towards the officers, Hot Spot led the way over and saluted smartly, his two smaller brothers a few steps behind. "Sirs, Blades has been delayed for several breams due to a priority supply run."

Optimus stepped back and nodded to them all and opened his mouth as though he were about to ask why Blades' presence had been required then closed it and nodded instead as the realization dawned on him. Of course, it had been one of Springer's scheduled runs before the attack. Jazz sighed, inclined his helm to them all respectfully and ducked out, much to Hot Spot's surprise.

"Hang tight there. If'n ya need anythin', lemme know. Gonna have a box dropped off atcha quarters later. Ya might be needin' it."

Hot Spot had heard the rumor that even the Prime hadn't been in the Doom Room. Here Ratchet was finally letting some of them in and Jazz didn't want to stay? The sinking feeling in his spark struck hard and fast and his optics caught the same look of dawning realization in his brothers as well. Sure everyone had heard the rumors, and Jazz always hammed them up in ways that left everyone even more confused than before, but this time there was genuine pain in his optics.

Jazz didn't want to go in because Prowl wasn't there.

The door whooshed shut behind the saboteur and Ratchet finally turned to acknowledge the three shocked bots, which only made them feel worse. Everyone on base was obsessing over what had happened to the shuttle crew, and who would and wouldn't recover, and here their was their beleaguered CMO half dead from the burden of trying to live up to everybot's hopes and expectations.

Pit he looked even more slagged close up. 

"Hey Doc..."

The medic cut off the fire truck with a curt wave and turned instead towards the medbay door that until now, had been off limits.

"There's no easy way to do any of this." He mumbled softly, completely ignoring the shocked looks he garnered from the three protectobots when they heard the complete lack of sarcastic irritation in his voice. It was a tone most bots didn't think they would ever hear from the crotchety old mech until they were on their death berth, and even then some doubted it existed. 

"We've all discussed this to the Well and back since we initially got them stabilized, and we all agree you four are the best to take charge. You have your link with your brother to give you more insight than any other bot will have, you're some of the youngest bots on the base, and you're used to working as a team. They don't just need caretakers. They need protectors who can keep them safe both from the shocked members of our own faction, those desperate to reclaim that piece of our past, and the slagging afts who would try to use them against us."

"Wait... are you suggesting they might be in danger here..." Hot Spot's engine stuttered and his vocalizer trailed off into static as the medic keyed in the security code and the door slid open.

Ratchet's mouth was moving.

Prime was shaking his shoulder.

Now Prime's mouth was moving to him too.

Hot Spot didn't quite process any of it though, as his processor stalled out and his CPU crashed.

 

* * *

"Aw come on mech!" Sideswipe glared at the Aerialbot's team leader, who barely gave him any acknowledgement whatsoever. "The whole base knows! Hatchet let the P-bots in almost three joors ago and then they paged all the emergency medical staff in! You gotta tell us what's going on!"

"No, I _don't_." Silverbolt replied stiffly, his hand clamped tightly about a cube of high grade. Red Alert had allowed it provisionally in the mess halls for the time being, provided no mech was reported for disorderly conduct. Right now every bot was too stressed by the attack, the rebuild, and the thoughts of all that they had lost to truly relax, and even the overly zealous security chief had been seen with a cube or two after his shifts. They all valued the privilege far too much to allow any one mech jeopordize it, so they had done a remarkable job of self-policing themselves in the off hours, dragging their own overcharged comrades back into quarters before anything could happen.

"Frag off you selfish aft! Why should you get to know and not the rest of us? They're our friends too!"

"And who says I know anything?" The jet's wings angled themselves higher as his voice rose to match. "Who says there's anything to tell?"

"Absolute pit. Unicron's aft could lie better than you. Hot Spot talks to you about everything so there is just no way that he didn't tell you what he's doing in the medbay!"

"He's not part of _my_ gestalt you overcharged exhaust-headed aft!"

"And _you_ were the one who brought them back so you still know what went into that slagging room to begin with!"

"SIDESWIPE!" Silverbolt thundered, his chair flying backwards as he stood and slammed his fists onto the table, his cube sloshing everywhere. The jet's optics glinted darkly and if it had been anyone but the frontliner in front of him, they would likely have gone scrambling back as fast as they possibly could in a desperate dash for cover.

The red Ferrari didn't even flinch.

"SLAG OFF!" His shoulder plates flared defiantly as he leaned in closer. "You _know_. Don't even try to deny it! And no more of this rust pile about top secret classified pit slag! You _KNOW_. The rest of us... We don't even know what to be worried about! We don't know who was brought off or who was left on that stupid can! How fraggin' messed up they were when you pulled 'em out! Or if there's even anyone other than First Aid back there! We don't slaggin' know and don't even try to sit there on your high aft and lecture me on how it's better this way! That's easy for _you_ to say when _you_ know!"

Sideswipe clenched his fists and stubbornly locked his jaw into place to bite back the more vehemently cruel retorts that were threatening to come out of his vocalizer. Across from him, Silverbolt offlined his optics without responding, and the twin continued several clicks later in a more composed tone.

"If it were Sunstreaker... No matter how fragged up he might be, I'd at least _know_ he was alive. And that'd be enough. I could hold onto that. Cuz at least I'd know that no matter how bad it could be, ol' Hatchet'd still be counted on to see to it that even the Unmaker himself would have a pit of a time taking him from us. But we don't even get to know that. About our own team mates. Our _friends_. It isn't right."

"Sideswipe..." Silverbolt sighed. "It's just not that simple."

"He's right though."

Startled, the jet onlined his optics and turned to stare at the corner the quiet words had come from. Slingshot was slumped forward on top of a table in the back with his helm resting on his folded arms. One finger was dipped in an almost empty cube, and he idly twirled it about the remaining high grade.

"He's right." He murmured again softly to no bot in particular, never bothering to look up at the almost combatants or at the mechs clustered tensely about the mess hall. "It's pit to not know. It's pit to know. But maybe it wouldn't be quite so bad if at least we all knew together. Not really sure if I still believe in Primus or not... Slag, I'm not sure if I ever really believed anymore. But maybe, if it's all real, then maybe it couldn't hurt if the mechs who did really believe knew just what they should be praying for right now. I mean... It's obvious that it don't matter one byte if you just pray vaguely to keep everyone safe or that would've been enough to to keep this stupid war from ever starting in the first place. But maybe... Maybe if they were praying right... Maybe..."

Slingshot sighed and turned his head away from the room. "Not even Primus himself could've survived that..."

Silverbolt sighed and sank down onto the floor, letting his head fall back to rest against the table. He knew his brother's chest plates still throbbed painfully from the damage he'd sustained in the rescue. He also knew Shot thought it was nothing compared to the pain of how their sparks all throbbed with worry. It was why he had removed the neural blockers. He'd sobbed and apologized to them over and over for the feedback that went into their gestalt bond, but it was just so much easier for him to block out some of the emotional turmoil by focusing on the physical pain.

"It's just..."

He was interrupted as the rec room doors whooshed open to raucous laughter and singing and every mech present swung around and gaped in absolute shock.

 

* * *

Groove's helm throbbed as his processor rebooted sluggishly. Fixit was chattering away by his side, going over the things to expect, explaining how they had all crashed in sync with Hot Spot, totally natural reaction to such a shock, nothing to worry about though, visual feed would be coming through in just a click now, audials had booted up just fine, wouldn't it be sucha nice change on the base though, oh and here come the visual feeds...

He groaned and started to roll off the berth just to make the disjointed chatter stop but froze as he felt something shift against his chestplates. Something warm, and so very familiar. Almost convulsively, his arm tightened about the mech's shoulders and he onlined his optics to find Aid's bright blue ones staring back up at him. The concerned pull of his optic ridge smoothed out immediately as Groove's optics met his own and he smiled innocently and trilled softly.

Groove blinked slowly, trying to process whether he was more shocked by his brother's trilling or the fact that he was not wearing a visor, and his brother trilled softly again in concern.

"His vocalizer is still stuck on cybertronian universal. At least it's an improvement over the binary click he first onlined with, but we're been having some trouble correcting whatever's blocking his linguistics centers."

Stunned, Groove turned and stared up at the speaker and his optics widened even more as he connected that soft, gentle voice to Ratchet's frame.

"Primus we've offlined and gone to the Midnight Zone..."

"Twilight Zone." Streetwise corrected him. "And no, we're not offline. Sorry 'bout your helm bro... Optimus caught me since I was closer, but you and Spot both went down really hard. Guess they didn't count on the whole surprise factor being powerful enough to take out the whole team."

His brother grinned cheekily up at him from the floor where he was sitting across from Blaster, who was calmly lining up his shooter.

"Betcha haven't played this in forever."

Groove gaped as Blaster sent his Praxian crystal shooter skidding across the floor and knocked a brilliantly polished malachite into one of the point rings. "Where in creation did you even find a complete set?!"

"Jazz is extremely resourceful." Optimus intoned gently from where he sat across the room. "I believe he made many from Prowl's personal gardens."

The wistfulness in his tone made Groove sit up higher, careful not to jostle his brother and stare about the room.

Prowl wasn't here.

"Then..." His vocalizer cracked and the static wouldn't let him finish his thought.

"Well now, enough wasting time." Ratchet turned his back to them all and suddenly busied himself with compulsively organizing whatever was on the countertop before him. "Hoist is already outfitting your quarters with Wheeljack, and Jazz is minding that he doesn't get carried away and blow out a bulkhead or some other such foolishness. I've given Hot Spot all the instructions and schedules you should need, and since you're all over that inglorious crash, why don't you all head down to the rec room for some energon. Hot Spot has the program codes for theirs already as well."

"But..." Groove barely stuttered out the single word before his brother trilled softly to him again and stood to drape his arms about his neck in a reassuring hug.

"Come on Blast-man." Streetwise scooped up the many brightly colored pieces into their wire mesh satchel and held out his hand to help the mech up to his feet. "I've got some goodies I've been saving that we can celebrate with too."

"Goodies!" With a cheer, the red mech latched onto the scout's hand and skipped out into the empty halls. Stunned, Groove glanced cautiously from Ratchet to his brother before he slowly followed. Even more shocking, Hot Spot was already in the corridor waiting for him, with Springer and Ironhide hopping around him _singing_.

Two of the deadliest mechs he had ever known were _singing_.

He knew it was an old Cybertronian folk song, which made sense since they were both eons older than any of them were, but the dialect they were using was so much older than he was that he couldn't understand any of their meanings. Hot Spot shrugged when he saw his confused expression and simply held out a hand to each bot.

"One... Two... Three... HOP!"

As the rec room doors slid open before them, his brother - his super serious, by the book, quiet and not in any way playful brother - swung both bots high up into the air with a broad grin as the duo broke off their song to shriek in laughter.

"Higher! Higher!"

Hot Spot's grin grew even wider as he happily complied, letting their little pedes almost brush against the floor as they came down before swinging them up again. The rec room had gone deathly quiet save for the crazed giggling and continued pleading of "again" and "higher" as they crossed the room. Blaster was skipping happily away beside Steetwise, and Aid was happily cuddled against Groove's chestplate, his thumb in his mouth.

"Holy fragging Sparklings..." Sideswipe breathed softly.

Then the entire room erupted into a raucous cacophony of chatter.


	4. Recharge Tales

Less than a groon later, all four protectobots were seriously questioning the wisdom of placing them in charge of the care of four sparklings.

Sure, their brother was easy enough. Aid had always been low-keyed, and now he was happily content to sit in someone's lap and cuddle non-stop. When Groove had jumped up to help wrangle the seriously overcharged Springer and Ironhide he had not protested in the slightest as his brother put him down and had instead moved over to the next closest mech and expectantly held out his arms to him.

Most had thought Sideswipe's engine was going to seize at the mere thought.

He had managed - rather gracelessly and only after a less than subtle kick from his brother - to respond to the adorable mechlet's demands and was now staring with no shortage of awe at the tiny medic cuddled happily against his chestplates.

It was all so disconcerting.

The sparklings were all very obviously their friends, and were readily recognizable as the mech they had been. However, all traces of battle mods and enhanced system upgrades were gone. No thick plating or surgical tools, no advanced sensors or weaponry. Stranger still to most was the fact that they had no trace of their alt modes. Wheels, rotors, glass panes, and even chrome bumpers were all gone. From these frames they could easily upgrade into absolutely any type of alt mode. The mechlets' current frames were simple and streamlined, though it was not too difficult to extrapolate their final forms from these basic frames.

Blaster, true to character, was as open and friendly as ever. He cheerfully introduced himself to the "new" mechs he was meeting, and asked questions that seemed both strangely absurd yet perfectly logical given the circumstances. When Rewind had finally entered the mess hall everybot had frozen, not knowing what type of reaction to expect from the cassette.

Blaster had pranced right up to him and flung his arms about the cassette's frame, thrilled to have another new friend his size, then dragged him back into another game of Orbitz. The cassette would stare wistfully at his host every so often as they played, but otherwise seemed to be in good spirits. Bluestreak had spent the groon seated on the floor playing with them, and it was quite apparent from the faceplates on every mech in that room that they were all rusting in their seats to get a chance to play the nostalgic game.

All of that had gone quite well.

The real problem, in Hot Spot's opinion, had come about when it came time to do something _other_ than play.

Particularly when Springer decided that he was going to do something else.

The mechlet was nitro incarnate, and whatever mischief he decided to get into, Ironhide was sure to be not far behind. 

When Kup arrived at the rec room with Blades, the old mech nearly wet his oil pan laughing. Blades merely gaped. Despite his brothers' advance warnings he was not prepared in the slightest to see Ironhide, his hands covered in oil, chasing Blaster about the room waggling his fingers menacingly at the other's clean finish.

"He's touching me!"

"I'm not touching you!"

"He's touching me!"

"I'm not touching you!"

"He's touching me!"

"I'm not touching you!"

Springer was seated on top of the table, in the middle of a pool of oil and overturned cans, calmly finger painting his plating with thick black streaks. Half the mechs in the room were trying to wrangle Ironhide, who had evidently been more agile than Jazz back in the day, while the other half either laughed at their efforts or cheered them on. Every so often the giggles were punctuated by the reverberating clang of a mech falling to the floor after failing to catch the mechlet.

Then, out of nowhere, Springer crouched down low, waggled his aft in the air and launched himself from the table to tackle Ironhide. The two mechlets rolled about in a greasy mess with one mechlet yelping in surprise and the other roaring with bestial vigor.

"RAAAAAWR! I'm a CYBERTIGER!"

Kup grinned as he took it all in from the doorway. A handful of sparklings had thrown more mechs into more chaos than most had seen over the course of the entire war. The only difference being that the spilled oil here wasn't actually _leaking_ from any bot and the ones who fell rose immediately afterwards, albeit with some rather ruefully ashamed looks on their faceplates over being bested by a sparklet. The old mech shook his head and quietly tossed his half-smoked sparkplug into the waste receptacle before he walked out to the center of the room and lowered his creaky old frame to the floor.

"Well now..." He growled theatrically, enjoying the shift in attention as he made himself comfortable. He even enjoyed the startled looks and raised optic ridges his lack of a sparkplug brought on in his fellow wreckers. "This reminds me of what happened to Primus' cousin Tertius when he tried to keep the Mech in the Moon from takin' his sparkling."

Instant attention.

"There's a mech in the moon? Where does he charge? There's no berths on the moon." Springer frowned suspiciously at the old mech from where he hung upside down. The oily tiger stripes he had given himself were beginning to run and drip into a small puddle on the floor below him leaving the mechlet looking as though he had gotten the absolute worst plaid paint job credits could buy. Sunstreaker was grimacing horribly and holding the filthy mechlet by one pede at arm's length to keep any of his finger painting from transferring to his own immaculate finish, and it was no small wonder that the mech was managing to keep ahold of the sparkling at all.

"Why did he try to take the sparkling?" Ironhide chimed in from the floor where his squirming red frame was pinned underneath Cliffjumper's, who was rather futilely attempting to held the mechlet still. Given a few more breams, Ironhide would undoubtedly be racing about the room yet again.

"Will he try to take us?" First Aid's thumb left his mouth for the first time any of them had seen since he had first entered the room. Even as he placed it back into his mouth he clutched at Sideswipe anxiously and peered about nervously as though expecting the aforementioned mech to have materialized at the mention of his name.

"Ahh but you see little mechs, to know that you have to go all the way back to the very beginning. Tertius you see, was Cybertron's first energon farmer. Now he wasn't as handsome as his cousin Primus was or as strong as his cousin Unicron, so when they began to fight across the universe over the children of Primus, he came to stay on Cybertron to help care for them until the winner was decided."

The freed Springer slid about in the oil slicks as he scrambled across the floor and clambered up onto the old mech's lap, lazily licking the oil off of his arm once he'd settled. Not to be outdone, Ironhide quickly wormed his own way free of his prison guard and claimed the opposite side. Both mechlets upturned faceplates were riveted on the old mech's as he spun his tale for them. To the old mech's enjoyment, he couldn't fail to notice that there were far more fourth frames that leaned in closer than moved off to their own corners as well.

"Tertius had a very good spark and was worried you see, about how the mechlets would all survive without Primus to feed them with the energy of his spark. His spark was very pure but not nearly so strong and bright and he did not believe it would be enough to sustain them all but he didn't know what else he could do. So he wandered the surface of Cybertron until one orn he came across the energon fields of Luteus Major. The crystals there resonated beautifully and called to him so he went up to the greatest outcropping and took out his energon blade and cut off the largest crystal.

"Well, as Primus would have it, it turns out that that particular energon crystal was hollow. So he goes up to it and he looks inside and what do you think he saw lying there just waitin' for him to come along?"

"A cybertiger?"

The green mechlet piped up excitedly.

"An energon mouse?"

First Aid offered shyly.

"The mech in the moon?"

Ironhide bounced about on Kup's lap with barely contained delight.

Only Blaster said nothing. His attention was so raptly focused on Kup and absorbing every detail of the story that all he could do when the mech paused was lean forward, trembling faintly in anticipation.

Kup laughed at the other three bitlets and grinned. It had been so long since he'd told an origination tale. Even the younger mechs who would ordinarily have still enjoyed the old stories had lost interest as they lost more and more of their safety and security to the ongoing war. The memories this brought up in his processor may have been nearly greyed by the millenia but they were still oh so very welcome compared to the millennia of dark ones that his career in the Wreckers had filled his cache with.

"Nah bitlets. None of those were in the crystal. A beautiful spark was. In fact, it was the most beautiful spark he had ever seen. He knew a spark was doomed to dissipate if not contained in a frame in time, so Tertius went and detached his right arm, and used that to make a protoform for the little spark right then and there. Once the spark was placed in the frame, it upgraded into a beautiful femme right before his very optics.

"What's a 'femme'?" Springer demanded imperiously.

"Erm... Well..." The old mech paused. He had forgotten that it was not all that long ago that femmes had been nothing more than a recharge tale myth, and without Arcee in the room for an example it was exceedingly complicated to try and explain. "I suppose what it comes down to is that a femme is just a much prettier mech."

"Oh."

Ironhide frowned. "So Tracks is a femme?"

At the bitlet's innocent conclusion Kup grinned broadly and barely stifled the chortle that rose up in his vocoder. For his part, Tracks scowled from across the room as all the mechs who had been equally enthralled by Kup's mechlet story erupted into laughter. After a few murderous glares at the mechs nearest him for the good natured jibes they threw him, Tracks sighed in defeat and raised his hands in mock surrender.

"I can't help it that I'm the best looking bot here."

"That's highly debatable." Sunstreaker retorted with an optic roll.

Kup grinned and knuckled Ironhide on the helm.

"You're one clever little bitlet, you know?" Ironhide beamed in pride at the praise as the room settled back down so Kup could continue. "Now this here femme that appeared before him didn't know where she was or how she had gottn there or even what her designation was. So Tertius brought her home with home and decided to call her Enertia in part after the energon crystal that gave her to him.

"Enertia was very loving and showered all of Primus' children with her affections. She showed Tertius how to harvest the energon crystals and refine them into their purest form to create nourishment for all Cybertronians. With the energon she brought us they made Cybertronians stronger, and as our ancestors entered their final upgrades they began building Iacon City nearby. 

"Well once the city was finished, all the bots decided to celebrate Enertia's kindness and all of the wonderful things she had brought them. They prepared for orns, creating energon goodies and music. Nearby in Praxus mechs had learned to use beautiful crystals for lights and they brought these over to trade for the energon and the mechs in Iacon used their beautiful crystals to make their city shine with light even when there was no sun. Once their city was beautiful enough, they held their Festival of Energon."

"Did Enertia like the party?"

"Of course she did Aid. She loved all of Primus' children and the beautiful things they had made in her honor. They celebrated for groons until, as the lunar cycle was approaching its end, Cybertron's moon began to pulse with a deep blue light."

First Aid emitted a small squeal and tried to nuzzle closer to the startled Sideswipe's chestplates, who immediately cuddled his arm about the small bot. The other three sparklings gasped with anticipation and leaned in closer to the old storyteller.

"It's the Mech in the Moon!" Springer whispered.

"That's right. The Mech in the Moon had been watching all the Cybertronians celebrate this entire time, and he was jealous of their happiness and angry that he had not been invited down to the surface for the festival. He wanted to take the city and all of it's beautiful things for himself. Of course Tertius refused to grant him his request, and he became enraged. Great bolts of blue energy burst forth from the moon and destroyed everything that their light touched!

"Why I oughtta..." Ironhide's little hands clenched into fists as his tiny faceplate twisted into a scowl. "He's mean. It's not nice to break things."

"Very mean indeed." Kup nodded sagely and patted the little mech on his helm. "Now you remember how I told you that Tertius was not a good fighter. He knew that the Mech in the Moon would destroy him and all the children of Primus if they could not get him to leave, but he knew he would never be able to defeat him in battle. Enertia knew this too and she couldn't bear to think about her beloved sparks disappearing into the well. So she bravely stepped forward and agreed to accompany him up to the sky but only if he would promise to never again set foot on Cybertron."

"She left!"

Springer's jaw dropped in dismay.

"Why didn't he stop her?"

Ironhide frowned in confusion. "He was supposed to protect her."

"She can't leave!"

First Aid sniffled as he pulled Sideswipe's arm tightly about him.

"It's okay bitlets... You see sometimes mechs have to do things that don't seem to make sense, but they do them for love. Enertia loved us all, and so she went up into the sky and became Cybertron's twin moon so that she could watch over us always. Whenever the Mech in the Moon became jealous of the children of Primus, his core would pulse with a deep blue light and Enertia, who was now the twin moon beside him, would absorb that energy and calm him to keep the children of Primus she loved safe. 

"That's why we begin every new vorn in Iacon by celebrating her with the Festival of Energon. She gave us the energon that made us strong, and she protects us from the energies that would tear us apart. She reminds us that we need to find balance in all things. Now with that bitlets, it's off to the wash racks and then to recharge with the lot of you. And you'd best mind your caretakers or next orn I won't get to tell you the story of Virimus and how he got his alt mode. Only good little bitlets get a recharge tale."

 The bitlets all nodded their helms obediently and quietly scampered over to take the hands of their protectobot caretakers who looked simultaneously relieved at the improved behavior, and mildly terrified to be leaving the mech who had been able to get them to behave. With a chorus of goodbyes and solemn waves they marched out of the room, and the old mech smiled then winked at the other mechs in the room.

 "Not too shabby for a rusted old scrap heap, eh?"

  


* * *

 

Ratchet twitched spasmodically as another ping sounded and dragged him further out of recharge. That pit-eating unicron spawned spark of a half-fragged glitch at his door had better be three quarters to grey or he was going to frag well grey them himself before they even had the chance to think about explaining themselves. Two more pings and his processor had finally sluggishly booted up enough for him to realize it wasn't the medbay door, it was the door to his quarters.

Slag it all he had scheduled this himself.

"Enter."

The doors whooshed open and the medbay lights outlined the tall silhouette of the Prime. Mercifully to Ratchet's exhausted optics, his frame was large enough to keep the majority of that light from spilling into his darkened room. For his part, Optimus hesitated in the doorway, dourly assessing his chief medical officer's exhausted slump.

"I will come at a later time-"

"NO!" Ratchet snapped, then dropped his helm into his hands for a klik to regain his composure before speaking again. "No, it's fine. I'm fine. To be perfectly honest, there isn't likely to be a better time anytime in the foreseeable future, and we need to discuss this. Before it leaks out over the entire base, which I'm sure it will, especially now that we've discharged the sparklings."

Optimus frowned, his expression clearly one that had yet to be convinced, but he said nothing more and stepped into the darkened room. Technically, it was the medic's office and not his quarters, but after vorns of being the only fully trained medic around Ratchet had long ago taken to charging here over his quarters for the convenient proximity to the medbay. Every time Hoist had offered to build him quarters directly off of the medbay he had cussed up a storm about how they could afford custom accommodations but they couldn't afford to increase the number of specialized berths for critical injuries in his medbay. 

Most mechs never thought about how much Ratchet was willing to personally sacrifice for the sake of his patients, but Optimus knew his spark through and through. His caustic manner was the only protection the bot had in this war where so many more of his patients were eventually lost to the well than were saved. So many of those sparks had guttered before his very optics, and it was no small wonder that his CMO was still able to endure it all and carry on relentlessly to try and save the next spark that found their way into his bay.

The Prime limped over to the energon dispenser after casting one last lingering look at his drained friend's frame and pulled out two empty cubes before he punched in the keys to fill both with medically supplemented mid-grade.

He strongly suspected that they both were in need of something stronger, but he was also quite certain that neither had the constitution for that at this time. Somehow, he doubted that that would hamper the medic though.

Returning to the desk, he placed one cube in front of Ratchet and sat down across from his CMO. He was content to sip his cube patiently while he waited for him to begin. In truth he was burning to know what the medic had to say that required even greater secrecy than normal. If it took longer than usual for him to vocalize it, then so be it. He had the time, if nothing else, to spare, and the doctor deserved to be able to ponder and reflect on what he wanted to say when for once, a spark was not hovering closer to the brink with each passing klik.

Ratchet for his part was somber and subdued, far more so than usual once the triage wards were emptied and the cleanup finished. He spent the first groon of their meeting staring quietly into his cube without so much as a word while his companion patiently waited him out. Finally he put the untouched cube down and rose to pace about the small room, finally coming to a stop in front of the painting he kept over the berth.

One of the few pre-war Sunstreaker paintings to have survived that they knew of. To this day, Optimus still knew not what the medic had done to have warranted the golden twin parting with the beautiful Vosian skyline, but it made these meetings worthwhile if only for the glimpse of their beautiful past and what he hoped might once again be their future.

"It's about the shuttle..."

Optimus nodded and shuttered his optics. He had known this would be coming eventually. "Prowl..."

Ratchet hesitated, then his shoulders slumped once again and he nodded in defeat. "There were... complications..."

"I had realized as much." He murmured quietly, forcing his vocoder to maintain a level tone despite the turmoil he felt inside his spark.

"The frame damage was bad enough, but then all the coding complications..."

"His split vault processor?"

Ratchet sighed and pulled out a dark bottle of Vosian liquor and added a generous serving into his cube before he proffered the bottle to Optimus, who merely shook his helm. "If only it were that simple... No. Perceptor was able to work around his TAC-net and the split vault. We're extremely fortunate that he is quite familiar with the system. The real problem was his spark. You see, Prowl just wasn't sparked in the same way as the rest of us were..."

"I fail to see how this is meant to come as a surprise." Optimus began slowly, his logic circuits humming in confusion. "It was always a very well known fact that Praxian Enforcers were pre-programmed sparks. Prowl's brilliant dedication to the cause in spite of what so many Cybertronians perceived as an insurmountable handicap was core-changing for many. Indeed, I think that it was largely thanks to him and his hard earned respect from his fellow Autobots that the Aerialbots and Protectobots had such an easy time gaining acceptance themselves when they came into being."

Ratchet blinked in surprise and turned thoughtfully to face the Prime. "You thought... No. No, Prowl isn't a pre-prog. If only that were the case... It's far more complicated than that."

Now it was the Prime's turn to stare back in surprise. Praxus had used pre-progs for _all_ their Enforcers long before the time of Nominus Prime even. No free-sparked Praxian would have even considered the position because of the attached stigma. Even now as his processor raced through memories of the Praxian, he could not come up with a single one that even hinted that he may not have been a traditional pre-programmed Enforcer. "If he was not a pre-programmed spark, then what was he? His emotional protocols were certainly not typical of a free-spark or even a split spark."

Ratchet drained his cube in one long gulp and let his frame fall heavily back down into his chair before responding.

"An OMNI."


	5. O.M.N.I.

_8.6 million years ago..._

 

"Professor? Are you in? There's a priority transmission here for you."

Ratchet frowned and dropped the pad he had been grading back down on the top of the ungraded pile. Post-Doctoral students who ran the mechanical medicine laboratory program did not receive priority transmissions for any reason other than a funeral. Both of his creators were greyed so he knew it could not be for that. His own carrier had been thoroughly disinherited by his caretakers when he had become sparked with him, and his sire had been an unregistered mech with no family to speak of. Certainly not the ideal family unit, but they had loved one another fiercely and they had loved him with that same vibrant intensity that had never left him wanting. He had never once questioned whether they each would have been happier had he not come along into their lives.

"Come in Smokescreen." He sighed. If this was yet another prank, Primus help him he was going to deactivate the mech's vocoder for at least the next three orns.

"Slaving away still Ratch?" The dark green mech and silver stepped into the room with a comfortable familiarity and held the pad out, though keeping it just out of the medic's reach. "Funny thing though... The messenger wasn't from the Iacon Couriers, or even Cybertron Sync. It was one of Sentinel Major's _personal_ couriers who delivered this... And not one of his Senate couriers either."

"Cyberslag." The medic scoffed as he pointedly glowered at the mech, meeting his gaze sternly before pointedly looking down at his still outstretched hand. The mech ignored his glare and continued on, completely unfazed.

"Cyberslag my aft. I saw him myself. They were getting ready to have security escort him up when I arrived since you weren't answering your comm. It was freaking the poor deskbot out so badly I thought he was going to glitch out then and there so I told them I was your personal assistant and they let me sign for it. You will however have to data burst them your own encrypted glyphs by the end of the orn or they may come hunting for both of us on some obscure penalty of law that neither of us knows about."

Ratchet snorted and leaned back into his chair with a smirking grin. Obviously his friend had no intention of just handing over the pad and he wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of leaping over his desk to wrestle him for it. Besides, guaranteed win though that was, that would just end with them both tangled up in the berth and tempting though that was he had another seven or eight groons worth of mid-terms to grade before the next lab period was scheduled to begin.

"Oh, my _personal_ assistant eh? Is _that_ what we're referring to you as now? You and your damn games." He shook his helm in exasperation and vented loudly.

"Hey now, these games are paying my way through medical school." Smokescreen grinned as he hopped up and sat on the corner of the desk, ignoring the scalding look the medic seared his frame with. Ratchet despised mechs treating desks, tables or countertops as chairs and his temperamental tirades about respecting your work space if he ever happened upon one of his student's doing so had become a campus legend of sorts.

"You mean through dropping out of medical school." The mech replied wryly as he stubbornly ignored Smokescreen's deliberate attempts to goad him on.

"Nah. I refiled my major for psychiatry. All the really interesting bots are locked up now anyway thanks to the Senate and that new clampdown program they're trying to push, and that'll give me the best access." He replied glibly as he twirled the pad idly on one digit.

"Psychiatry? _You_ are going to learn to _listen_ to other bots? Without trying to con them out of their credits? That's about as likely as you sticking to one paint job for more than a vorn. I swear you're worse than Senator Shockwave." Ratchet sighed and rolled his optics. He liked Smokey well enough but pit the mech needed to take on a little responsibility and frame up already. He had all but exhausted the list of medical majors to choose from at this point.

Still unfazed by the medic's sarcasm, Smokescreen grinned and clutched his sparkplate in mock agony. "You wound me deeply with your lack of faith! And actually, I've really been liking the grey accents in this one. I think I might go grey permanently, and not in the bad sense. More like a moody and mysterious slate."

Ratchet shook his head and glanced down at his own slate paint. Slag it the brat was doing it on purpose just to make him go and get his changed. There was no way he was going to be one of those insane cuddly matching couples. "Primus himself would have no faith in anything you said _you_ were going to do."

He eyed the pad suspiciously. Even if it _had_ come from Sentinel Major it wasn't as if the pad would know whether he read it alone or with company. And it wasn't as though he had any type of security clearance to trouble himself about, so really there could be no harm in letting the nosey mech in on the message. "Now come on. Hand it over so we can both read it."

Immediately Smokescreen dropped the pad into his hand and leaned precariously off the edge of the desk to peer over the medic's shoulder while Ratchet punched in his glyphs and clearances.

"Frag it you were serious about Sentinel Major... This thing is demanding every piece of identification there is except an energon sample and a deep resonance spark scan." A faint tingle of worry crept into his spark. What on Cybertron had he done to get the Sentinel's attention? And for what? The only relief was that he knew he wasn't under arrest or he would already be in stasis cuffs. Unless the threat of arrest was going to be used as leverage...

"Hey Smokey..." Ratchet paused as his digits hovered over the final coded input. "You're _absolutely_ sure no mech saw us last deca-orn in the senate's private gardens outside of the magistrate?"

That made the green mech grab ahold of the medic's shoulder to save himself from falling gracelessly off of the desk and onto his aft. "Slag it all, I hope not... The fine for that would be..."

"Obscene?" Ratchet finished with a scowl though his optics never moved from the blank tablet in front of him. The fine would be obscene, but again, a court summons would have come with a warrant officer and a pair of stasis cuffs until after he'd been processed and paid his retention fee. But still, the Senate gardens, and here the Senate's guard sending him a private courier? Was the mech above blackmail? He sighed again.

"I just knew your aft was going to get me into more trouble than it was worth... Slag it I could lose my chance at tenure if that winds up on my permanent record. Not to mention there go most of the best surgical residencies in Iacon."

"I can't help it if I've got such an irresistible aft and besides, I seem to recall a certain doctor who was _more_ than happy to perform a _very_ thorough examination at the time." The mech smirked, though the grin did not make it all the way to his optics. Even he appreciated the seriousness of the penalties that those allegations could bring. "Now come on... Is it a summons or not? A court summons still wouldn't have his personal messenger though, irregardless of where we just happened to be obscene. Besides that, I would think my paint job makes me a pit of a lot more recognizable than you, and then there would be one for me as well if that were the case."

"I hope you're right..." Ratchet sighed and shuttered his optics for a few kliks then hit open and quickly scanned the material that scrolled across the screen.

"The Prime's Citadel?!" Smokescreen gasped as he read over his friend's shoulder. "You're going to go stay at the _Prime's_ Citadel! What in the name of Primus' aft did you do to deserve that? You're not hiding some high-lineage nobility code from me, are you?"

"Pit no! But why... It doesn't make any sense. Why would I be receiving a medical summons from the Prime himself? I haven't even finished my final thesis... Only the statement on the intent of my research has been published, and it's more far-fetched theory than anything else. It hasn't even been accepted by the Board yet as a viable research project." Ratchet murmured as he shook his head in confusion. 

"And what the frag is an OMNI?"

  


* * *

 

Nearly a full mega-cycle later, Ratchet still knew no more than he had when he first read the pad. Now however, his bag was packed, and he was data-bursting the last few packets on the laboratory schedules to Skids, who would be his temporary replacement. He had gone over the contents of the message nearly twenty times now and was still no closer to understanding what they could possibly want with an unknown post-doctoral resident at the Prime's Citadel.

It was just absurd. He was absolutely no bot of _any_ importance.

In fact he hadn't even sat for his planetary exams yet so he wouldn't even be legal to practice medicine in Iacon. The fees for the exam had been prohibitively expensive so he had only taken those for his city-state to allow him to work until he could afford the planetary ones.

Maybe he should bring his toolkit just in case though... He was almost there with his savings, and the letter had stated his time would be compensated. It might be enough to put him over the sitting fees and then he could take advantage of the free transport to Iacon this gave him to register at one of their testing locations in person.

His mentor had transferred to Iacon, and he was sure the mech would allow him to stay a few extra orns with him if need be. Med kit it was then.

He turned to grab the kit from its place on the bottom shelf and jumped as he nearly collided into his room mate.

His overly nosy room mate who was scrolling through the data pad. A data pad he was quite sure he had turned off and re-locked...

"Jazz what the frag is the matter with you! That was _not_ addressed to you!"

The obnoxious hover car twisted easily and danced around him to sit at the room's desk, his frame bending fluidly as he dodged each attempt to snatch the pad, while the entire time his own optics never left the pad.

"Hey Doc... Whadda ya know about this?"

The medic scowled as he finally snatched the pad back and subspaced it, then froze as his optics were met by the steely blue gaze of a visor set grimly in an unsmiling visage. In all the vorns he had known the mech, he had never not seen Jazz with a smile plastered across his face plates. The glitch was all fun and games, and seemed to be quite content on breezing through life on his charm and connections.

The look actually chilled the energon in his lines, and was enough to make him forget the lecture he had been about to spew on respecting personal boundaries and instead sit on the edge of the berth across from the mech.

"I have a feeling you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear."

Jazz stared at him shrewdly then shook his head and grinned. "No idea what makes ya think that my mech, but ah am taking ya out for a celebratory drink before yer transport. Got a few groons right? There's a place ya might actually like not too far off."

The medic was about to protest but one look from Jazz silenced him.

"I could really use some high grade right now." He murmured finally as he stood and gestured for the mech to lead the way. He sent Smokey a brief databurst with the last few things he needed gathered together and the time and coordinates of the transport then followed Jazz out the room.

Outside the mech was all glib smiles and chattered away about the amazing nightlife in Iacon and how he absolutely had to make sure to try the energon here, and the rust sticks there as they strolled casually across the campus. It made the medic's processor whirl at the ease with which the mech had gone from almost deadly serious to glib chatterbox. Apparently nothing he knew was what it seemed anymore. Sure, there had been rumors about spies and sleepers and that sort of over-processed slag running amok since the Decepticon dissidents had returned, but for the most part he had always brushed them off as little more than idle processors in need of something more productive to do.

But it seemed that was not the case.

At the main road Jazz transformed and he followed suit. The roads twisted and turned, and it was not long at all before Ratchet had absolutely no idea where in Kaon he currently was, or if he was even still in Kaon at all. The streets narrowed with nearly every turn, the lights dimmed, and the traffic thinned until they were the only mechs on the road.

For an astro-second, the thought flashed through his processor that Jazz was actually some sort of illicit parts dealer and was luring him out here to deactivate him and chop him, but his pragmatic nature refused to entertain the thought and deleted it even as he slowed and stopped in front of what might have been the absolute seediest energon bar that he had ever laid optics on.

"Hey Hound! How's it hangin' my mech?" Jazz casually raised a hand in a peculiar greeting to the scruffy green and black mech lounged against the door, who made an equally odd hand gesture in return as they walked past. Inside the music was loud and the interior was dimly lit, but Jazz negotiated it easily waving and greeting a few other mechs as he led them to a booth against the wall.

Inside the booth, the medic was surprised to note that the acoustics were entirely different. The louder noises in the room were far more muffled which actually made a conversation possible, and even quite private at that. A lithe blue and white mech brought them two cubes and a large pitcher of a dark violet energon mix and poured them two servings.

"Thank you." He murmured softly as he accepted his own, then gaped as Jazz clumsily knocked his own and cursed in irritation at their server. Amidst a flurry of apologies their server unsubspaced several cleaning cloths and quickly wiped down the tabletop before he got down on his hands and knees to clean the floor.

"My apologies sir... I wasn't paying attention sir..." Ratchet squirmed uncomfortably as the mech continued to grovel humbly as he finished the cleanup, refilled Jazz's glass and withdrew to the bar area.

Apparently remorseless, Jazz sipped his cube and stared at the medic across from him shrewdly for a moment.

"I get the feeling I'm being sized up for something." He began cautiously.

"Yup."

Ratchet's optic ridge twitched as no further explanation was forthcoming and he took a long swig of his own cube, pleasantly startled by the potent burn. Cheap stuff, but actually quite good none the less and definitely kicking.

"Do I _want_ to know what I'm being sized up for?"

"Prob'bly not." Jazz sipped his drink again before he set the cube down and steepled his fingers. "What do you know about that letter?"

Ratchet frowned, and folded his arms as he leaned back. "Not much more than anyone else who read it. It was delivered by Sentinel Major's courier. It doesn't say a thing about why they are inviting me. And it's apparently about something called an OMNI."

"Not so much some things as some ones."

Ratchet frowned. "So it's some sort of team? You don't mean a military unit do you? I know the Council politicians have been on edge lately but do you really think that it's going to go that far? Even then, why would they summon a medic over a military unit? They train their own in house."

"Oh it's already there mech. Ah wouldn't be expecting t'be calling a certain mech Major for all that much longer."

Ratchet's ridges shot up incredulously at the deadpan tone the statement was delivered with. "And you know this because?"

"I'm an Autobot."

Ratchet frowned. The news of this new faction appearing had spread to the academy as well thanks to Senator Shockwave's correspondence, but it was still deemed too young for it to have any real substance or merit. The ideals behind it were sound, and he whole-sparkedly approved, but he had heard these sorts of speeches before and was determined to wait and see this one pan out before he became overly invested. "And you want me to join?"

"Not exactly. I wantcha t'know what yer being summoned for."

"This OMNI whatever, whoever?"

"You've heard about Praxus 'n' their impenetrable defense system?"

"Sure what mech hasn't? The Miracle of Praxus. The Blessing of Primus. The Light of the Gardens. It's been called a lot of things. All I really know about it though is that it has something to do with their Enforcer system. However they're run is somehow flawless. Crime detection, interception, prevention... The system is fragging perfect. There isn't a police force that doesn't envy it, and there isn't a mech who knows how they manage it. What would that have to do with me?"

"Nothin'. That was mah job. Went in as an Enforcer for almost 17 vorns."

"You're slagging my leg! They don't recruit!" Ratchet glared evenly at the mech across from him. Why in the pit would anyone try to spin such a pathetic lie? Even a sparkling knew better. "Everyone knows they're pre-progged sparks who activate, vent, and recharge the Enforcer way. They don't transfer, they don't quit, they're Praxus Enforcers til the astro second they deactivate and they _don't_ let in outsiders."

"Vector Sigma placed me."

Ratchet froze. That could not be right. Stunned, he rebooted his processor and replayed the memory file. The slagger really had said that. Anxiously his optics roved around the room to see if anyone had overheard.

"Ya don't hafta worry here. 'Raj already made sure the table wasn't bugged." Jazz tilted his head towards their lithe server who was now standing behind the bar then leaned back and eyed the medic critically. "'Sides... That's not the real shocking part."

"There's a shocking part?" Ratchet's intakes stuttered and he drained his cube to try and quiet them. Jazz silently refilled his cube and watched him drain a second, and then start on a third.

"Omnipotens Mentis Nusquam Inservio."

Ratchet frowned as he booted up the old language files, and his faceplates paled. "That can't possibly mean what I think it means..."

"It means exactly whatcha think it means."

"But that's... that's..." Ratchet's intakes hitched and stuttered and his helm spun. Slag it he shouldn't have had so much high grade. Despite that thought, he seized his current cube and gulped it desperately, stuttering as some air got into his intakes from his carelessness. This was impossible... No one would have ever condoned such barbaric treatment... It was...

"It gets worse." Jazz interrupted his runaway thoughts softly. "These sparks have never known anything else. They were brought into this world and then only allowed to live halfway in it to perfect it for other mechs. Sentinel sent me in to find out what their system was since the Praxians weren't sharin' and once he heard he got this idea that they're the key to the war. He's summoning a medical team to transfer 'em."

"He's kidnapping sparks?!"

"That's just it... Praxus classifies them as OMNI. It's a _thing_. That makes them _things_. They're the property of the state. They ain't mechs. They ain't even pre-progged. Slag it they don't even got processors o' their own, least not as far as ah could tell. Sentinel got the council ta eminent domain the OMNI system once he knew what the papers needed ta say in order to make sure he got those sparks. There's a whole mess o' security mechs out there now confiscatin' the systems that house 'em."

"I still don't understand... This is absurd... Praxus is one of our greatest city-states and you're trying to tell me that they're essentially mutilating sparks to power their defense net? What could Sentinel possibly think I could do for such poor souls?"

Jazz leaned forward and stared intently into the confused medic's optics for a moment.

"Sentinel is summoning a medical team cuz he plans ta make mechs outta 'em."

  


* * *

 

Omnipotens - all-powerful // Mentis - intellect // Nusquam - non-existent // Inservio - enslaved

This is my own take on the stationary spark / OSA concept I've seen tossed about other fics. Just a lot more twisted really for reasons that will be seen later on.


	6. Beginning

_8.6 million years ago..._

"Vosian high grade please." The service bot gave no sign if he thought the request odd so early in the orn, and turned back to his cart for a breem before he returned and handed him the cube with a slight bow. Ratchet inclined his head silently in thanks as the minibot backed out into the corridor then closed the cabin door and continued down the hall to the next private cabin.

As if the mere promise of the free transport hadn't been amazing enough, when Ratchet had arrived at the departure coordinates it had turned out to be a private cabin on top of that. The luxury was simply unfathomable to a poor medic like himself and he had spent the first half of the trip staring in awe out the window at the beautiful cityscapes that flowed fluidly past the window glass. Pit, even the seat was plusher than any berth he had ever recharged on. With a soft sigh, he downed the cube quickly and leaned back against this comforting cushioning now.

His helm spun, and not because this was his third drink today.

When he had arrived at first light at the depot he had been intercepted at the ticket booth by one of Sentinel Major's agents who had escorted him to this cabin and personally handed off a classified packet. Palm circuitry scans, optic wiring scans, all three of his glyphs; it was only by sheer force of will that he concealed his irritation at how long it took to sign for a single slagging data pad. Then to top it all off, after the mech had left he discovered that the data pad was equipped with _sensors_ even, that scanned the cabin for unauthorized presences and recording devices then scanned his optical retinas to encrypt the data stream in a way only his optics would be able to interpret. He'd heard tales of Sentinel Major's paranoia, but this had been his first true encounter with it.

When he had finally found himself able to tear his eyes from the view and focus, he had discovered that the data packet went into great detail about the tactical benefits of the Praxian Defense Model as it called it, though he did note there was no mention anywhere of sparks. It did however go into elaborate explanations about the seven interlocking "systems" that made up the Defense Model. The hub unit was the only unit connected to all of the spoke units, and was the only unit with maximum data clearance. It was responsible for coordinating all of the dispatches of the other six units, each of which was specialized in a particular aspect of defense and was responsible for the actual dispatches pertaining to their particular specialty.

In all honesty, he couldn't quite understand how this was any different from the way the army was currently run. Put a general in charge, and have him meet with all the department heads and it sounded like this was exactly what you had. Except, of course, for the fact that the general in this model was perpetually connected to his department heads like some freakish group bonded cult.

_"Not just sparks mech... **made** sparks... Mechs went and merged intending to make these sparklings and lock 'em up in some dark closet like they were nothing more than tools."_

Ratchet shuddered again and considered pushing the call button to order another drink. Somehow even the Vosian high grade wasn't potent enough to ward off the chills he still had from his conversation with Jazz. If the lunatic glitch was right and these really were sparks, then this network sounded suspiciously like a bonded team, and if these poor sparks were bonded to one another in such a complex way...

Another powerful shudder racked his frame at the dark memories it brought up. The gestalt project had been abandoned eons ago when it was determined that even though the superior team coordination between the bonds was absolutely without par, the loss of a single spark meant the loss of the entire team. In fact, it didn't even have to go so far as a complete loss to have devastating effects. Capture one and provide enough sensory feedback and you incapacitated the rest as effectively as if you had captured them all. The medical boards had declared it equivalent to sparkling torture and voted unanimously to have the process outlawed.

That had quashed the military's aspirations to develop gestalts into superior special operations and covert teams. The losses had clearly outweighed the benefits. Most mechs thought they were merely rumors, but he had been one of the few junior medical staff present when they had attempted to break the bonds between the few survivors before they were dragged down with the fallen into the Well of All Sparks.

They had failed spectacularly.

It was the first time he had watched a spark gutter. The first time he had held a hand and lied baldly to innocent optics that everything would be alright even as they flickered and grew dark. The first time he lost a patient while he floundered in complete incompetence and ignorance and struggled to understand how even his brilliant professors could do nothing to help these mechs. He sighed and picked up the data pad again and tabbed to the next packet only to have his struts stiffen in absolute shock.

It was his thesis.

Shock turned to elation as his processor churned out the importance of the mechs who had considered his research invaluable enough to include it in this classified packet. Then the elation slowly faded into dismay as he realized he would likely have to present something at this meeting and he had no materials prepped. He hadn't even fully developed the process that he wanted to attempt or how he felt it to be best approached. Then the dismay turned to anxiety as the possibility of being asked to lead a medical team on which he would most likely be the youngest and most inexperienced mech. Then that anxiety turned into horror as the final pieces clicked into place and his processor locked up.

Jazz was _right_.

The Praxian Defense Model used _actual_ sparks. There was no denying it if his paper was here in the information packet.

To make an already horrifying situation worse, Sentinel Major believed his research was the key to transplanting these hostage sparks into unfamiliar frames in order to enable him and the Council to manipulate them into doing their bidding. Whatever plans Sentinel, the Prime, and the Council had in regards to those poor tortured souls, they had all been born of the thesis of an over-ambitious post-doctoral resident who had never imagined his theories that were intended to help mechs who had been severely maimed beyond repair would be used in some political power play, because that was what this was.

The realization struck him in the heart of his processor like a commercial grade compacter. This was a political power play. Praxus was the strongest city state because they had these sparks and had found a way to exploit them to their benefit. Sentinel and the Council resented that and had conspired to find a way to take that power and make it their own so that they might become the strongest. He was a pawn brought in to help move the pieces around, and the sparks were nameless, faceless victims who didn't even know they had been victimized because the only life they had ever known was the false existence that they had been placed in.

Ratchet lurched to his feet and bolted unsteadily down the corridor to the wash racks.

Suddenly, that Vosian high grade just wasn't sitting right in his tanks.

  


* * *

  


The Praxian crystals were glowing softly, bathing Iacon in their soft golden light when the transport finally pulled up to the citadel. It was their last stop, and only those mechs who had been able to present the proper papers had been allowed to remain on the transport to this point. Security bots had swept through each and every compartment to make certain there were no would-be stowaways tucked away in some overlooked corner. That was also when one of them had helped a rather shame-faced medic back to his cabin from the wash racks.

Thank Primus he only felt like slag. It had been a vicious battle to prevent his tanks from purging, and there had been several very close calls, but by some miraculous advent here he was in Iacon with his energon still in his tanks instead of dribbled down his chest plates.

"Greetings Medic Ratchet." The grey medic turned around with a start and shuttered his optics apprehensively at the voice that wafted to him seemingly from nowhere, then looked down at the green mini-bot who had spoken to him. Of course it was a mini-bot. He had disembodied sparks on the processor, and now his programming was running wild on him and creating disembodied voices to go with those data threads. He vented softly and reminded himself sternly that there were no disembodied anythings in Iacon.

 _Not yet_. His programming lilted back and he vented again, harder, to try and force the stubborn nightmarish images back behind a sealed partition where they belonged.

"My apologies Medic Ratchet. I did not mean to startle." The poor mini-bot was nearly level with the ground with his bow assuming he had somehow offended the visitor, when nothing could have been farther from the truth. "I am to guide you to your quarters and then to the Prime's meeting room. It is Sentinel Major's wish to greet all of his visitors and allow them to become acquainted with one another over evening energon."

"Of course. My apologies. The long trip has left me feeling a bit... out of sorts." He thought briefly about smiling but dismissed it just as quickly. It would probably only look even more fake than he feared it would. No point in making the poor mech feel condescended to on top of everything else already heaped on him.

The little bot never let on if he was upset by Ratchet's poor emotes, and instead began to walk purposefully towards one of the sprawling wings of the immense manor. As he followed, Ratchet's pedes gradually slowed to a stop as his optics shamelessly gaped at the exorbitant splendor around him. The Cybertronian cityscapes he had rode past in the transport were mere trifles compared to the elegant architecture here. Even the walls were beautifully polished to the point that they reflected everything flawlessly and were coated with a mineral he wasn't sure he was familiar with. It was hypnotic the way it made the golden glow of the scattered crystals reflect in a myriad of ways that seemed to swirl wispily across the composite surface. The slightest movement had the effect of shifting all of those lights across the surface with a swirl of warm fluidity he would not have thought possible were he not seeing it for himself.

"These walls are called The Sentient Nebula after the artist who designed them. The Praxian crystals are positioned such that from the central walkway the effect is as though you were moving through the Cerusian Nebula. The lore is that Sentient designed so flawless a finish that he saw himself reflected upon these walls with such perfection that he could not tear his gaze away. He stood before the wall and stared into his own reflected optics until he became convinced that it must be his true sparkmate on the other side and tried to merge with him. When his chest plates parted, his own spark became trapped just beneath the wall's surface and is now forever searching for his imagined sparkmate to free him. Iaconian caretakers will tell the story to their sparklings as a warning to not become so conceited and obsessed by the superficial to fail to notice the true nature of the dangers concealed underneath."

"It's beautiful." And tragic to say the least. He let his fingers brush lightly over the surface and watched as his hand reflected back to reach up and gently meet his own fingertips where the surface met. A tragically beautiful tribute to the destructive power of obsession and the fine line between it and love. It was so very appropriate for Iacon. "I didn't know that particular tale. Thank you for sharing it."

"Not at all." The mini-bot beamed at the praise as they continued walking. "There are quite a few such tales scattered about historic sites here. I can prepare a list with their lore and coordinates if you so wish."

"Please. Although I'm not certain how much time I might have to myself to indulge in such sightseeing. I suppose I will learn more at this meeting you mentioned."

"Indeed. The programmers will be staying there in the western wing across the courtyard. The rest of the medical staff, yourself included, will be here in the southern wing. You will be assigned your partner at the meeting and when ready, you may each contact me to make final arrangements for your travel."

"Travel?" Ratchet frowned. His partner? Programmers? His guide gave no sign of having heard him as he continued into the southern wing and Ratchet was forced to quickly follow so as to not become lost. He scarcely had time to gawk at the high vaulted ceilings that could easily accommodate even a triple frame before he found himself scurrying up a twisting spiral staircase and down another elegant corridor. Ratchet's optics couldn't help but widen at the lavish use of rare minerals in the construction, and the numerous Praxian crystals lighting the halls.

Meanwhile mechs like him barely got by, and he knew of far more even less fortunate. Just one of these lights would sell for enough to keep him in high quality energon for nearly a stellar cycle. He was so preoccupied by those musings that he nearly collided with the mini-bot, who had stopped in front of an open doorway.

"There is a room for entertaining with a holovid screen, another for research with a terminal loaded with a complete listing of the references found in the Iaconian archives as well as a planetary-wide communications system and medical simulators. The berth is in the room to the back and there are private wash racks attached. If anything is inadequate or not set according to your preferences please notify me so that I may take action to make the necessary arrangements."

"You've got to be slagging me..." He blurted as he gaped. "Mechs actually _complain_ about rooms like _this_?!"

The mini-bot frowned in confusion. Or was it disapproval at his slip in profanity? Ratchet couldn't be sure.

"Standards and preferences vary greatly by both frame type and city of activation. It has also become increasingly popular to travel or even permanently relocate since the cultural investigators began their publications. While this room is set to what we presume you to prefer, if your preferences have swayed due to experiences in other preferred city states there would be no inconvenience caused by your expressing that desire so that we may properly host you for the duration of your stay."

"Well then if that's proper then this should do just fine." Ratchet muttered to himself as he shook his head. They couldn't seriously be offering to tear down and rebuild a luxury suite just because maybe he preferred Protihex to Kaon or some other such nonsense, could they? It went beyond wasteful indulgence there, but then again, he paused as he noted the gold flaked filigree work on the berth's frame, wasteful indulgence seemed to be the theme here.

With another vent, he poked his helm into the workspace just long enough to evaluate the size of the desk and dropped the data pads he had brought with him on it.

"If you are finished here Medic Ratchet, please allow me to show you to Sentinel Major's dining hall."

"After you." With a sardonic smile, the medic cast one last glance back over the ridiculous room, then closed the door behind him.


	7. Introductions

The white and blue science bot keyed in his passcode with the speed of one who had passed through this door countless times before then stepped aside so his companion could enter the secured room first. The lights were dimmed and cast more shadows than illumination about the ominous room. Both mechs were obliged to pause for several astro-seconds to allow their optics to recalibrate before the scientist stepped forward to one of many identical shipping crates which were neatly lined up against the far wall.

Stopping beside the first, he keyed in several more commands in rapid succession while his companion stood behind him, his expression one of eager expectation that seemed incongruously out of place on the massive war frame. To him, the dark metal of the coffin shaped shipping crate gleamed with hidden promises and untapped potential. As the lights powered on their reflection flickered in his optics and on the command panels as they were expertly manipulated by the smaller mech. A high-pitched chirp of approval had both mechs leaning forward expectantly as the heavy lid of the crate depressurized with a high-pitched hissing whistle as the air rushed in through the sudden break of the seal, and the smaller mech lifted the lid with no small display of pride at the contents.

"The basic programming is already pre-installed in the frames processor vaults. As you requested they all have the core programming which would be typical of a military bot enhanced by your specified upgrades: all fear programming has been removed to decrease the instinct for self-preservation, they have decreased safety shut off protocols to allow them to perform at higher capacity under greater duress, and the exceptional loyalty and unquestioning obedience that you specifically requested."

"Excellent work Intelicus." Sentinel's large blue and orange frame leaned back and the mech smiled as he surveyed the motionless black and white frame laid out before him in the plushly padded crate. To any lay mech it would have appeared to be a mech in stasis, but he knew better. 

The empty shells contained no sparks. At least not yet.

"Nominus was a fool to have allowed Praxus such freedoms. The Praxian ambassador can deny that their defense system cannot be turned into an offensive model all that he wants. I can smell a military system all the way from the dark side of our second moon and the mech is only deluding himself if he believes he can conceal such a tactical advantage from the council." He traced a large blue finger up along the smooth chest seam where black met white and smiled a small, cunning smile. "I'm sure he will appreciate the extra touch of using Praxian frames. A deliberate choice?"

"Standard enforcer builds actually." The science bot sniffed almost disdainfully as he powered on additional monitors to pull up the frame's settings. "For your purposes there simply was no other frame that could come close no matter what angle you examined them from. They have thicker plating, stronger struts, and a uniquely designed spark circulatory system that enables them to easily carry a wide assortment of concealed weapons. If the Praxians had not insisted on keeping those ridiculous sensory wings, they would be a fair match to any comparably sized war frame. The wing panels alas, create a disastrous vulnerability that cannot be compensated for."

Sentinel's grin widened as he thoughtfully stroked along the upper seam of the sensory wing nearest to him. The pristine new metal gleamed flawlessly in the low light. "Spurned by a Praxian in the past Intelicus? I doubt you would consider them so superfluous if you had ever held a captivated Praxian in complete overloaded flux with nothing more than two fingers and a wing seam."

Intelicus snorted disdainfully and ignored the Major's wicked grin before he continued without acknowledging the interruption. "For tactical data collection though they are without par. You would need to deploy approximately twenty-three mid-range sensory drones to collect the same amount of information, and then you would still need to assign mechs to spend more time analyzing it. These frames are all designed with a split vault processor that will be able to break down and analyze the data as they actively collect it making them capable of minute real time adjustments in decision making that no other mech can lay claim to."

"And the glitches associated with them?" Sentinel frowned. "I asked you to develop something similar yet superior to the split vaults. Those damned prototype frames caused their mechs to all lock up their processors right into their own spark deactivation."

"By reformatting their base morality code and programming them to disregard any emotionally charged data as corrupt they're extremely unlikely to suffer the processor locks that degraded the circuitry in the first models that attempted this. If you so felt the urge, you could order them to eliminate a sparkling center and instead of locking up on the morality and crashing they would calculate and enforce your order in the most efficient and expeditious manner possible."

"And the likelihood of a Decepticon or political opponent turning one against me?"

"Nil. You will be imprinted on them as though you were their conjunx endura, essentially making you an extension of themselves in their processors' logic centers. It will be superior to even the more typical mentor imprinting used on weaponized frames. The imprints have already been programmed into all of their subroutines which will give them no conscious awareness of the bond but all of the emotional and logic processor tie ins."

"Absolutely brilliant. I must commend you on your superior efforts this time. I eagerly await seeing these new developments in the functional mechs. Now on to more pressing matters. Which of the medics did you wish to work with for the activation of the hub?"

"I will not be activating the hub spark." The white and blue mech replied as he closed the lid and meticulously re-activated the travel locks and seals. His optics flicked up only once, and then for less than a nano-second. "It would draw far too much attention since it is widely suspected that you and I collaborate on many less than savory projects. Shall we leave it at certain mechs will be less likely to question the legalities of these proceedings if I am merely working on one of the spoke units with far less influence as compared to their central hub unit."

Sentinel's expression seethed as his pleasure was replaced by near-instantaneous rage and when he addressed the programmer next his voice had dropped to a low tone that would have chilled the sparks of a lesser mech to guttering. "I assume you would not have made such an ill advised decision without consulting me first unless you had already taken the steps necessary to arrange for a suitable replacement?"

"Of course. A brilliant young nobody. No family, no bond mate, no practice or regular patients. He is the perfect mech for a most unfortunate accident should the need for greater secrecy arise in the future. I worked with his mentor briefly and know that this mech is shaping up to be revolutionary in the field of medicine even at such a young age. Since his thesis provided much of the medical science behind this process, the council will likely perceive the entire project as a test of his skills prior to the military turning them to their advantage."

The lid clicked shut firmly and Intelicus moved smoothly to the door's access panels and began keying in the exit sequence. "Naturally, he will be paired with Perceptor to activate the hub. The Council will see them as just another pair of young, ambitious, brilliant processors capable of thinking outside of the restrictions of normal coding but unlikely to appreciate the long-term ramifications of their actions. Hence any unforeseen consequences would be attributed to their youth and inability to properly work out their theories. Since the science and medical councils all endorse allowing younglings to manage their own thesis projects without interference so that they might learn from their mistakes, no one will question that we are merely 'assisting' in this."

The doors whooshed open softly and he waved his superior through before stepping through and locking it behind them. "Additionally, I do anticipate the hub to provide the greatest amount of resistance and potential for violence, hence I am assigning them to it. Should the process go wrong, it would simply be a tragic accident due to the arrogance of youth and their own inexperience."

Sentinel's optics were narrow and calculating as he followed the science bot back to the main hall. "I trust you do not believe anything will go wrong though? These sparks are integral to my plans and are far too valuable a commodity to be throwing out on a couple of school mechs playing in a lab much too big for them. I have great plans for this team, Intelicus. Great plans indeed. It would be a shame if you were to miss out on them."

Intelicus' lips twitched into a small secretive smile. "Had you ever thought to delete a few of your war scenarios in order to make room to download any of their work, you most certainly would not be dismissing them so easily."

  


* * *

  


"A pleasure... Yes, please... I'm honored... The privilege is mine... Thank you..." Ratchet's helm spun as he found himself perpetually turned to be introduced to a new mech. The names came fast and furious and the syllables had barely fallen upon his audials before some other bot was stepping up to clasp his hand and divert his attention.

And every last one of them had something to say about his thesis.

No wonder his caretakers had always lectured him on the vices of allowing pride and praise to inflate one's armor. It felt ridiculously _good_ to have so many mechs whose intellects he could truly respect have such glowing praise for him. The one thing he was able to latch onto amidst the flurry of activity was who was a programmer and who was a medic. The medics all had praise for his medical frame theories and suggestions for the re-integration of the sparks while the programmers all had questions that ranged from the lay to the absurd and were all centered around overcoming processor shock lock down protocols.

Naturally, _that_ was the one aspect of his thesis that had not been developed. He was a medic, _not_ a programmer, and he hadn't found one interested in his thesis long enough to discuss the programming aspects. To have a whole room of them showering him with questions and suggestions was completely overwhelming.

"Ah yes..." His processor fairly buzzed in excitement at how close he would be to finally perfecting his process with so many brilliant processors willing to contribute to the coding. "Well the processor lock down protocols are perhaps the greatest obstacle to overcome since an individualized approach will be needed depending on frame type and core programming."

"Not to mention variances in base training, individualized modifications and specialized upgrades..." A tall red and black mech seated at one of the tables mused thoughtfully, almost to himself. "City states will play a substantial role as well I would think, since certain states like Kaon and Praxus have rather steep variances from the more standardize upgrade schedules than states like Iacon or Perihex. The timing of upgrades and the permanency of their integration with their core programming would also affect the processor reaction to such drastic frame alterations."

"Yes, exactly! The first volunteers would ideally be a group from the same city state and preferably the same frame type and function." Ratchet hurried over to the mech's table and almost laughed in delight as the red mech seemed startled by his arrival. Truly here was a mech who could become as lost in his processes as he himself could.

"Indeed the greater the similarities between the first patient populace the easier it would be to isolate similar threads in code and localize the source code for potential lock downs. From there it would be a simple matter of statistical analysis to extrapolate the similarities in coding functions across to a separate frame or function class."

"My thought processes precisely. By reducing variance in the initial group it should facilitate both the development of a standardized process but also reduce complications in later, more complicated mechanisms with a greater proportion of specialized coding and function." Ratchet's face plates fairly beamed in delight.

"Truly an inspired process. If I may, had you based your initial design scenarios on the energon refinery disaster at Altihex?" The red mech tilted his helm thoughtfully. "The amount of catastrophic damage to the laboring frames coupled with the nearly universal design and functionality would fulfill all of the preferred characteristics in the ideal patient populace. It is truly a shame this had not been proposed then."

Ratchet's optic ridges shot up at the question, and he immediately turned his gaze downward and stared heavily into his energon cube. How incredibly stupid of him. Of course an intelligent mech like this would have been able to make the association, but he had never prepared for the eventuality of them confronting him on it so directly. It stung viciously at his spark even as he reminded himself that his own frame type bore no resemblance to those typical in Altihex. As his silence dragged on, the entire room dropped into an oppressive silence as the realization set in.

"I'm so s-sorry..." It was truly endearing the way the poor mech floundered for words when flustered. "Please... Forgive me... I have a tendency to... well to omit the... more _personal_ considerations attached to the... Puristic austerities of natural scientific research. I did not mean to offend."

"No... It wasn't..." The medic vented hard and steadied his intakes. Direct approach. Yes that would be best here. Just get it all out and into the open and let them process it as they would. "My creators were both present and involved at the Atihex refinery blast. With the total extent of the damage, all of the mechs who had not been deactivated forthright were placed directly into stasis... Unfortunately... without a viable repair plan..."

His vocalizer trailed off and he felt another mech clasp his shoulder silently in support. He did not turn his helm to see who but silently thanked Primus for the solidarity that mech's touch provided him just then. "Well... Naturally the costs of keeping non-viable mechs in stasis like that are rather high... I don't fault the Altihex Council in their decision to withdraw funding but it's not a field that lends itself to wealth so naturally... Well every mech already knew what the outcome was going to be."

"It is tragic when a mech's spark comes down to the cost of repairs versus replacing. Yet highly commendable that you would elect to take such a tragedy and develop a way to prevent such decisions from being possible in the future. A viable means of repairing such damage that would preserve all of the damaged mech's knowledge and experience would surely be seen as preferable to training a new spark. Surely even the most callously cynical of entrepreneurial mechanisms would be obligated to defer to such logic."

"One can hope." Ratchet managed a weak smile. It was strangely comforting to hear such a calm and cynical statement in support of his work. If even base logic predicted the benefit to outweigh the cost then it gave him even more hope for the future.

"Forgive me. I have been exceedingly inconsiderate in my thought processes." The red mech smiled in response to Ratchet's own and extended a large black hand in greeting. The medic found himself rather pleased to note that they both bore the faded paint and scuffs of long hours in the lab and a total disregard to their appearance due to its lack of impact on their performance. He clasped the hand warmly. "I am designated Perceptor."

"Perceptor?!" Ratchet's surprise was echoed in a collective gasp and he felt his grip twitch and seize on the hand gripped within his own. " _The_ Perceptor? The same Perceptor who developed the anti-viral coding for the Ankmor Polymorphic Trojan that plague Gygax? Or wrote the algorithms that corrected the focal semantics at the Baird Beaming Facility?"

He struggled to keep himself from gaping in absolute shock. The mech didn't look all that many vorns older than he himself was. Pit there was even a fairly well-substantiated rumor that the Prime himself wanted to appoint Perceptor as head of the Iaconian Science Institute for his achievements. It really didn't help the shock factor any that this inconceivably brilliant mech looked like he was going to squirm right under the table in an embarrassed attempt to hide his flushed face plates.

"The one and only."

All the science mechs straightened with a start and turned as one towards the source of the voice. The mech who had spoken loomed above them in the doorway, his powerfully massive shoulders blocking out the light from the hall behind him and glinting off his blue and orange paintwork. Once again, Ratchet found himself struggling not to gape. Sentinel Major's frame was massive and magnificent all rolled into one imposing figure of a mech which demanded instantaneous and unconditional respect. It was no wonder he was the chosen head of the Council's security.

"And you..." Sentinel strode forward purposefully and stopped in front of the meek medic who's hand was still limply gripping Perceptor's in his own. "Would have to be Ratchet. Your paper is quite brilliant you know. You should be equally proud of your own accomplishments to date. I am expecting far greater things in the future to come and I am confident I will not be disappointed by the results. From you both."

Ratchet struggled to nod mutely.

Ho... ly... slag.

Primus please just don't let him leak oil.

It was thoroughly inconceivable to even the wildest of thought processes that any cycle to come could ever be any more epic than this one currently was. Slag, the probability of one even coming remotely close was infinitesimally small.

If only he could get rid of the cold chill of misgiving in his tanks.


	8. Snap Crackle Pop

Ratchet vented in frustration as the cheaply made transport was jarred once again by turbulence and his stylus scribbled erratically across the notes he had been jotting down on the data pad in his opposite hand. The two pads that he had had propped up on the small table went clattering to the floor, and Perceptor leaned down to retrieve them for him with a small smile.

"Deluxe transport in, rattling death trap out." Ratchet snorted in disgust as he set his pads back up and fixed the scrawls on his notepad.

"Logical though, since they obviously wanted every mech to see us going into Iacon, but they do not wish for those same mechanisms to realize we have gone out again. If the wrong sort of mech took note of our departure it could place our mission in jeopardy, and by proxy, our patient."

"Mission..." The medic bit back to urge to spit. He couldn't even begin to think of this spark as his patient. More like his victim. It burned at him on a level he could not even begin to describe. Jazz had been absolutely right, and it positively seared his gears just to have to admit that that lazy party-whore was evidently quite a bit more than he let on.

Oh, Sentinel Major had put a great spin on things just like Jazz had said he would, what with his pretty speech about the innate evils of slavery and how such injustices could not be allowed to continue against Cybertronian-made sparks. Tragically - and oh so very conveniently for him - it was determined that the poor things would almost certainly be unable to handle the processes for full base programming and so a specialized program had been written for them targeting and eliminating those processes which would pose the greatest obstacle to their rehabilitation and assimilation into Cybertronian culture.

By which he meant the majority of their free will and personality programming.

It had disgusted him to listen to the other medics coo over the poor little sparks and praise Sentinel for his noble actions and dedication to their well-being. Could they really not see how blatantly obvious the military's intent for these sparks was? How could his fellow medics not appreciate what it would do to a mech to close off so much of the programming which made them all Cybertronians?

Across from him Perceptor turned the pad he had been reading around in his hands again. Slag it must be the tenth time this groon that the mech had done that and it was really starting to grate on him. Maybe he had been wrong about him. If he had this much trouble focusing on a single lousy tablet then maybe those other stories were just flukes. Even the most epic of glitches got lucky sometime or another.

He paused and circled a few lines that caught his eye. Thank Primus for that at least.

"For what?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You just said, 'thank Primus for that' and I was wondering what you could be referring to?" Perceptor tilted his helm quizzically and pursed his lips thoughtfully as his gaze drifted down and over the lines that were now circled on the tablet.

Frag it all was he talking out loud now too? Ratchet sighed.

"I was referring to the frame that they have prepared for us." He began slowly, unsure how much he should say or how his partner would react.

"It would seem like you were referring specifically to their reproductive capacity." The red mech countered smoothly as he leaned forward and tapped a finger on the tell-tale pad.

Well frag him three ways sideways. The medic glowered. He would be on a transport with one of the 0.012% of the population whose processors were capable of reading glyphs upside down.

"I concur." The programmer murmured quietly, then glanced about their travel cabin apprehensively as though he expected Sentinel's agents to materialize through the walls and haul him off to the pit of despair.

"Wait..." Ratchet frowned and found himself also glancing about anxiously for these invisible enforcers before he continued. "You... agree... that these mechs should not have the capacity to reproduce?"

Perceptor squirmed. "I... I find that the restrictions being placed on their coding would make any willful determinations with respect to their own fates extremely improbable. When that is factored into consideration it is only reasonable to assume that these mechanisms would consequently be extremely limited in their ability to mentor any youngling much less sire or carry one. Given the high improbability of them being perceived as socially fit to raise a sparkling, then it would stand to reason if they did produce a sparkling, said sparkling would immediately become a ward of the Council."

Ratchet shuttered his optics and leaned back against the cold steel wall of the transport. "So then you've come to the same conclusion as I have about these sparks and the council's intentions?"

"Without knowing your theories on this matter I cannot say with absolute certainty that that is the case, however it would appear reasonable to state that we are both in a quandary with our moral obligations to our patient and our patriotic duties to the Autobot army." He murmured softly.

"I think that sums this fragging slag up nicely." Perceptor winced at the profanity, and Ratchet managed a lopsided smile of apology. "I know... I drink too much, I frag too liberally, and I cuss too much."

Perceptor's faceplates flushed. "I fail to see how that would... erm... I mean we should... ah..."

"Figure out how to fix our patient without getting executed?"

"Indeed. I would find it infinitely preferable if our deactivation could be avoided in this instance."

The medic grunted. "Then it seems the greater burden of our task will fall mostly on you. How these sparks boot up in these frames is going to hinge on the coding. And those split vaults are going to be a real clog in our exhausts... Fraggers were never stable to begin with and now we're supposed to make them work without guttering their sparks with the transition shock." Ratchet scowled and scrolled up through his notes. 

"I believe that can be circumvented if the proper measures are taken and we implement gradual coding changes." Perceptor hesitated and glanced about again apprehensively. "There are certain... _components_ shall we say, of the core programming extractions documented that I feel would... _impede_ your attempts to medically stabilize our patient."

"And are these components alterable?"

"I believe they can be... improved upon. Quite substantially." Perceptor flashed him a small smile.

Ratchet grinned. "I take back everything I thought about you before mech. I think we're going to get along just fine."

"Oh... Thank you... I suppose. Although it is completely unnecessary to rescind your previous thoughts as they were apparently never broadcast to me to in the first place."

"Well. I do anyway. Now though I suppose all we can do is kick back, power down, and wait to find out where we're heading." With a sigh the medic tossed the pads back into his subspace and shuttered his optics. "Ping me when we arrive and can get started."

 

* * *

*ping*

His processor booted sluggishly, and hitched before initiating full start up protocols. His chronometer flashed angry warnings over his HUD that he had not had a full recharge cycle and his health protocols were obstinately trying to override his processor's attempts to boot up.

*ping*

Was that the third? Fourth? His vents and temperature regulators powered on and cycled through their startup subroutines before sending the ok to his motile core.

*ping*

"Fragger..." He mumbled. Since when did his alarms not shut off?

"My apologies... You are an extremely difficult mech to rouse." A soft voice murmured apologetically.

"What...?" Now that there was something irritating his hinges off, it was easy to process the overrides to get the rest of his systems up and running, which included his memory core and mobility processes.

That was right. He was locked up in some long forgotten underground bunker with ludicrous military grade reinforcements sealing him inside with Perceptor. That stupid fragger must have hacked his timer to add on some code for that damned pinging. Which was actually quite brilliant now that he could extrapolate other applications. His initial irritation was already gone as the usefulness of this coding for monitoring critical patients processed.

Critical patients.

The medic bolted upright, his frame's cries for additional recharge ignored and forgotten as his optics focused on the prone Praxian frame on the neighboring berth. When he had powered down his helm had been open and Perceptor had been engrossed with inputting new coding adjustments to the core subroutines that Sentinel had sent the frame in with. Now his helm was closed and Perceptor was jacked in to one of the medical ports along his side.

"Are we ready?"

"I believe so. Energon first however. I wish to be able to properly respond to any unforeseen complications, and neither of us will be able to do so with only fumes in our tanks."

The medic laughed curtly but complied. He swung his legs off the narrow berth and walked the ten steps across the room to the dispenser. It was absolute swill and had probably been forgotten here since this place had first been sealed up, but it made the grade for all of the medical requirements which unfortunately, did not include taste. For that reason, he threw his cube back as fast as he could. How Perceptor could stand to drink it slowly was beyond his comprehension.

"The power readings have been holding steady?" He eyed the screens critically as he scrolled up, looking for the point at which he had finally fagged out and collapsed into recharge on the one berth they had been taking shifts using.

"Yes. The core has integrated nicely with the framing. All of the power and electrical readings have been holding steady at acceptable levels. The energon lines have been reading at maximum level for almost two full mega-cycles now and I haven't seen any spikes or anomalies in the past joor. The frame is most definitely ready. Now it will all depend on the integration of the spark to the memory core and processor."

Ratchet nodded and swallowed hard. That energon felt like it was going to come back on him, and he knew it wasn't just because of the foul taste. He didn't want to hold another hand in his and feel it clench wildly at his fingers before going completely cold and slack. He didn't want to watch another spark flicker out while he stood there floundering like a giant aft with his mouth hanging open and no ideas on how to prevent it.

"I think it will work." Ratchet jumped at the soft voice that spoke as a hand squeezed his shoulder in reassurance.

"It's now or never..."

Perceptor nodded and carefully unlocked the seals on the stasis box beside the berth. Ratchet tensed as the soft cerulean glow crept into the room. Nestled in a custom foam bed the spark pulsed softly in the slow and regular rhythm of a deep stasis. The spark's vaporous corona was pulled in tightly against its core, which was to be expected from stasis, but still...

"It's much too large for this frame..." Ratchet frowned and seized the spectrum scanner from the side table. "This can't be right... This spark belongs in a double frame at least... It might even qualify for a triple frame... And what the frag is that..."

The medic stared at the scanner then linked it to the larger view screen and Perceptor leaned forward.

"I've never seen anything like it..."

"It's... it's like something contaminated it..." Ratchet stared hard, trying to make sense out of what he was seeing. The spark's crystalline core had three strange dark cloudy streaks swirling through it. "The containment membrane isn't breeched, and I've never heard of a spark surviving even the slightest of scrapes to the membrane. So how in Primus did whatever that is get in there?"

"Perhaps it's something superficial secondary to their previous usage?" Perceptor frowned and changed the angle of the view screen.

"It runs through the spark in places though... See the dark thickening near the core? Whatever it was crossed through the spark somehow and congregated there more so than anywhere else." Ratchet frowned and tilted the box to try and get a better angle on the peculiar anomaly.

"If they had not completely sealed us off here with no means of communication we could have checked in with the other teams to confirm whether this is unique to the hub or uniform across all of the defense sparks."

"The spark's integrity doesn't appear to be compromised... and the signature readings are steady with no signs of abnormal flux. Temperature and spark pulse are both reading normal for rate, rhythm and amplitude."

"I can only hypothesize that the spark is of an unusual size because of the higher than normal energy demands of the TAC-net that this frame is equipped with. Logically, since we know in the past these systems drained and guttered their host's sparks in a few scant vorns, a larger spark that has been trained to conform to the dimensions of a smaller frame would be more likely to sustain those demands without guttering."

"Frame constriction is barbaric... It was banned after the Quintessons were defeated."

Ratchet sighed and frowned unhappily at the strange cloudy swirls. This really was going to keep finding ways to get worse, wasn't it? In a hospital setting, there would have been another five or six tests he would have insisted upon before allowing a such a mech out of stasis. In a sparkling... Sadly he was reasonably sure such a sparkling would never havemade it into their first frame, which could be why there was nothing in any of his medical databases describing it.

"I guess... all we can do is cross our wires and pray to Primus." He muttered. Perceptor nodded and began coating his hands generously in anti-conductive lubricant. Ratchet gave the spark a final shake of his helm in dismay, then plugged into the frame's main medical port and began the override sequence to part the chest plates.

The interior spark chamber was a dark, cold gray color which sent a chill up his struts. He just couldn't stop thinking about that first patient's death and the long breems he'd spent afterwards staring into that cold gray chamber. Some small part of him had been desperate to believe there might still be some tiny speck of spark left that could be kindled and another, much larger, part of him had been terrified that when he finally did turn his back would be when he would miss it and a living mech would be dropped into the slag pits.

"Ready?"

The red mech's voice sounded rather faint, and Ratchet made a conscious effort to steel his circuits against the doubts. "Absolutely. Starting the integration process in three... two... one..." The peculiar blue spark cradled in Perceptor's glistening hands slid gently into its new casing and as the warm electric buzz and soft hum of processes woke it the wispy tendrils of corona began to slowly waft out and reach for the interface connections that lined the casing's interior.

"CPU integration at 10%... 20%..." Perceptor's voice droned on while Ratchet began to power on the motor processes one by one.

"Core integration complete... Initiating boot sequence..." The slate medic tensed as he felt the spark stir and reach sluggishly for the nearby processes. "So far so go-"

The medic's optimism died in his vocalizer as the frame convulsed and arched violently. Bright blue energy sparked and zagged across the frames surface. Electricity crackled and snapped harshly throughout the frame's circuitry. The crackles were punctuated by violent pops as breakers shorted out, and the mech's vocalizer emitted a hoarse crackle of white noise before the frame fell limp.

Across from him, Perceptor's hand was still on the emergency stasis control panel.

"Frag."

If he weren't so preoccupied with a patient who seemed on the verge of exploding, Ratchet might have laughed to hear the curse slip out of the prim programmer's vocalizer.

"I'll start replacing the wiring, you start mapping the surges."


	9. Bonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is rather long... Couldn't find a spot I liked for a chapter cut so really it's more of two in one. :)

_Present Day_

Optimus frowned as Ratchet's voice trailed off. The medic's optics were pale and glassy as he stared blankly at the empty cube of energon in his hand though the Prime strongly suspected he was seeing another scene altogether. His friend's faceplates looked positively stricken and their gray coloration was so pale that it nearly matched the white on the rest of his frame. It had been a long time since he'd seen that face on his friend.

The first surprise raid on Tyger Pax.

The alarms hadn't sounded in time.

Missiles had shrieked.

Then screams the likes of which he had never heard before mingled with the crackling of flames.

The Seekers had gotten ahold of intel that the senior Autobot medics were doing a field triage training with the fledgling medics. Kill the healers and no one would be left to save the soldiers. They had been sent to hit the medical ward, but chance thunder had startled the lead flyer and they'd struck the troop bunker just to the right. 

The filled to capacity troop bunker.

His own optics shuttered for a painful moment as the acrid smell of burning energon assaulted his olfactory sensors once again. That evil orange glow.... Golden tongues of flame reaching up from the Pit itself to gobble up the unfortunate sparks trapped inside. He counted his vents slowly as he tried to banish the images and sounds back to the deepest, darkest memory vault he had. Then he stood and grudgingly picked up the half-empty bottle of Vosian spirits. If this was what it would take to get Ratchet to finally unburden himself of even just a fraction of his guilt and pain, he could put up with a drunken medic for a few more joors. He filled his friend's cube from the bottle and scooted his own chair closer before he sat down again then leaned forward and gently placed his hand over the medic's own.

The contact startled him back to reality.

"I believe I recall the time frame you're speaking of..." He stated thoughtfully. Or rather, his memories from the life of Orion Pax recalled it. "This would be right around when Sentinel razed the Institute and demanded Shockwave's surrender, was it not?"

The medic gulped from the cube and tried to compose himself before he nodded. "Yes, it was. When I finally came back I found everything gone and they... The Senate... They had him reformatted not long after. I almost wish that those slaggers had lived long enough to see what a horrific mistake that turned out to be."

"He was a good mech..." Optimus nodded sadly as he leaned back in his chair. "We've lost so many of those... Far too many than we should have if we truly were as advanced and civilized as we always claimed to be."

"I'll never understand how a 0.1 percenter wasn't able to stop Sentinel."

"You didn't know?" The words had slipped unbidden from his vocalizer before he could stop them and the Prime shook his helm sadly and paused. He still believed now as he had then that it was better that the medic did not know, but now that the secret was laid out before him he knew there would be no rest on the medic's end until it was fully unraveled. "Roller went back into the burning medical wing looking for you when he realized you weren't among the campus evacuees. We didn't know about this secret project you'd been spirited away for. He was sure you were either stubbornly refusing to leave a critical patient, or so engrossed in some type of research that you failed the notice the building burning down around you."

Ratchet paled again and raised his cube to his lips though he never actually tilted it to drink the high grade. He just sat there frozen for several long breems while Optimas patiently allowed him to turn it around in his processor and assimilate the new information. In the end, the cube was lowered back onto the table, untouched.

"I said such horrible things to him after I came back and learned about what had gone down there... I blamed him for Senator Shockwave turning himself in the way that he did. Why didn't he ever tell me that..."

"Because he was your friend and he understood." Optimus replied quietly as he squeezed the hand under his own. "He knew how much you respected him, and how much it would have hurt you to think that you may have had anything to do with his incarceration. We were both rather fond of him as well. He was an impressive mech, and one of the few inspiring figures demanding that our society evolve and change in a positive way. Even the matrix... When I see what Sentinel turned him into, the pain and regret that emanate from it are overwhelming."

"Hmph." Primus he was tired of those two words: pain and regret. There needed to be a little more joy and relief after so many millennia. "Nothing any of us can do for him now though, so there's no more point in dwelling on him than there is on dwelling on any of the energon that's been spilled."

"True..." Optimus stared thoughtfully at his medic. "How long were you down there in that room for this program?"

Ratchet shuttered his optics and leaned back in his chair. "Felt so much longer than it really was... Never fought a battle like that one before, or since." The mech opened his optics and reached into his subspace. Optimus felt his optic ridges rocket up in surprise as he identified the pad in the medic's hand. Dark Cybertronian alloy, blocky shape, nearly three times thicker than the pads they all used now... The relic belonged in a museum.

Amazingly, it still worked, but really that should have come as no surprise. He knew many of Ratchet's tools - wrenches excluded - were his original ones. The medic took care of them as well as he did his mechs, and there was no denying the quality of care there, no matter what some mechs thought of his caustic attempts at sympathy.

The drab olive glow of the old screen as it flickered to life cast a rather sickly shadow over the medic's countenance as he swiped through the files, the distorted reflexions of a long disused medical glyph system mirrored deeply in his optics.

 

* * *

  


_8.6 million years ago_

_03.04.03 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Boot-up sequence failure determined to be caused by instability in sensory integration._  
_Result: overcharging of entire neural net._  
_Repairs: Wiring of sensor grid replaced. 1.43% Heavier grade used. Standard wiring not stored within current facilities. Perceptor anticipates heavier grade to result in a more even distribution of charge and thermal energies. Start-up protocols to be re-written and cleansed of non-essential or prohibitive coding._

 _03.11.02 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Boot-up sequence failure determined to be caused by instability in sensory integration._  
_Result: overcharging of entire neural net._  
_Repairs: Wiring of sensor grid replaced. 6.79% Heavier grade used. Anticipate more even distribution of charge and thermal energies. Probable slowing of certain active processes due to heavier grade of wiring. Verified integrity of start-up protocols. No error in coding found._

 _04.09.09 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Boot-up sequence failure determined to be caused by instability in sensory integration._  
_Result: overcharging of entire neural net._  
_Repairs: Wiring of sensor grid replaced. Same grade used. Followed Perceptor's recommendation of altering splicing system, increasing buffers, and reinforcing synaptic ganglia. Anticipate wider distribution of charge and decreased likelihood of cortical overload by 42.37%. Searching other protocols for potentially prohibitive coding which may be hampering start-up protocols._

 _05.07.03 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Boot-up sequence completed successfully._  
_CPU sensor integration processing appeared to have stalled. Spark serial 1618152312 communicated malfunctioning of 37,463 visual feeds, 123,562 audial feeds, 347 aerial feeds, 192 thermal feeds, 174 meteorologic feeds, and 573 interdepartmental communication lines._  
_Spark serial 1618152312 maintained active medical hard line communication and logical response to inquiries for 01.04.07 (Mega-cycle.Groon.Breem) before total cessation of all transmissions and responses to command prompts. 03.07 (Breem.Klik) post cessation of all communication spark serial 1618152312 suffered total autonomic failure followed by processor shut down and attempted deactivation._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _05.09.04 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Total processor overhaul with comprehensive download and cache analysis performed to localize deactivation sequence activation source._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _05.13.05 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Coding analysis of deactivation sequence restrictions and protocols performed by Perceptor to determine required activation sequence._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _05.17.01 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Risk evaluation scenario constructed to determine potential for permanent processor and spark damage if deactivation sequence is re-initiated secondary to an additional failed boot attempt._  
_Results inconclusive._

 

* * *

  


*ping*

*ping*

*ping*

Ratchet twitched as his systems booted again. Once again a plethora of warnings and systems alerts crammed their way onto his HUD, and once again he overrode each one to finish his start up protocols. That damn alarm was really starting to grate on him in a love hate sort of way. Almost as much as that damn spark-in-a-box that was obsessed with self-destructing, which is all he could determine their fourth failure to be. If they couldn't find anything wrong with programming or protocols then it had to mean that the spark _actively_ initiated the last deactivation sequence that they had only just barely saved him from.

Which now made things a lot harder. If the spark was working to thwart them, then every attempt to activate him could have the same result until the damage became so severe that activation was no longer an option.

Pressed tightly up beside him, Perceptor twitched as his own protocols kicked on. They had long since given up on sleeping in shifts. They did the work they could, crammed the Primus glitched fragger back into stasis and passed out together in the other berth. They both processed better even after these pathetic excuses for recharge, and when they both processed better they challenged each other better as well, calling into question aspects the one hadn't thought to consider prior to initiating their shut down sequences.

Regrettably, it hadn't gone farther than recharging, at least not yet. The complete lack of privacy in this one roomed pit did lend itself to some rather imaginative fantasies amidst the lurid ones that involved smelting a certain Praxian frame and hiding the evidence in a long disused slag pit somewhere deep in the shadowed slums of Kaon. It certainly didn't help that the wash rack in the corner was completely exposed and that his companion was rather fetching when freshly cleaned. Funny though, he didn't usually have an optic for those flashy red finishes but somehow on this adorably shy programmer it was exceptionally alluring...

Made him wish he had some hot wax and a polishing cloth.

Oh the fun that could turn into...

"Ratchet...?"

"Hmph?"

"If you wouldn't mind..."

Frag. Hopefully the mech hadn't noticed the increased warmth emanating from his interface panel. Ratchet's faceplates twitched at the thought and he pulled his arm back from where he'd had it snaked around Perceptor's waist just a little too snugly. The freed programmer wriggled down to the end of their berth and stood, his armor clicking loudly as he stretched to pop joints and plating back into place after their cramped recharge.

"Primus they really didn't think these arrangements out... Unless we just drew the short axle as the youngest mechs in the program."

"Doubt it." Ratchet spat out sarcastically. "Sentinel made such a big fuss over this hub spark at the meeting and then again at our departure. He doesn't strike me as the ego-stroking type. Pain in the aft that this rotten glitch is, I can definitely see how some of our team mates wouldn't have been able to handle all his lug-rusted crashes."

The red mech sighed as he fetched them two cubes of energon. "I just don't understand it. His code is fixed. There is no reason for his processor to be locking up and shutting down the way it has been."

"You're positive all of the hidden slave coding is gone?"

"Positive. I have cleansed and re-written every glyph of his code twice over now and reviewed each chip with a micron-tipped scanner. There is nothing left to find. His emotional protocols are running at only 11% to reduce the emotional shock of transition. Anything lower would be more dangerous than beneficial. Now it seems to be just a matter of making his logic processor accept this new reality."

"Hmph."

"I've been turning over several possible scenarios. How do you feel medically about restricting his sensors and permitted functions?"

Ratchet frowned. "You're proposing deliberately paralyzing some of his systems in order to simulate a more gradual conversion from O.M.N.I. to mech?"

"Precisely. In the Praxus Defense Grid they had no permitted physical function and were restricted in their sensors abilities to gather only the data that the grid wanted them to have. The rest of the time they were streamed infinite amounts of data to incorporate into their analysis but they were not required to collect it. We should do the same. Temporarily disable those systems he would not know how to access, focus on those that he would, and as he adjusts to the new restrictions to these systems presented by a confined frame we attempt to expand upon them gradually with more mechanically minded functions."

Ratchet frowned as he plugged into the frame's medical port to begin initiating the stasis withdrawal protocols.

"You know... it just might work... Here's to hoping the fifth time's the charm..."

 

* * *

  


_Scanning..._  
_Scanning..._  
_Scanning..._  
_Total memory found 7.931 Zebibytes._  
_Creating /ramdrive on temporary cache._  
_Creating chatlog and eventsync on ramdrive..._  
_Done._  
_Starting boot sequence..._  
_Starting advanced power management daemon..._  
_APM bios found, advanced power management enabled._  
_Scanning for remote link... remote link not found._  
_Scanning for remote link... remote link not found._  
_Scanning for remote link... remote link not found._  
_\--Initiate medical override linguistics file Cyb318/medic1--_  
_Scanning for file Cyb318/medic1... file found._  
_Initializing file Cyb318/medic1._  
_Done._

"Confirm audial input."

Ratchet's voice was clipped, as though he were scolding a wayward sparkling, in what he hoped was a believable attempt at authority. The blue optics of the Praxian frame were dimly lit, although his visual feeds had been cut, and motor function had been disabled except for those processes directly connected to his vocalizer. It was a bit unnerving to have the optics stare emptily into space instead of adjusting their focus towards his voice, but necessary at this stage.

"Audial input confirmed."

The voice was low and mellow, though strangely hollow in its clinical austerity. With some tweaking to the emotional protocols though that should resolve on its own. Behind him he could just imagine Perceptor's victory dance at the sound of their spark finally vocalizing. The only other time that the spark had been responsive it had been exclusively through the medical hard line.

"Confirm status."

"Status minimally functional. Missing informational feeds-"

"Acknowledged." Ratchet cut in hastily. The last thing he wanted was a verbal repetition of the exhaustively comprehensive data feed that he had received last time enumerating every single line that was missing. "Feed status is terminated on all counts. Update logs to reflect termination of remote feeds."

He could feel Percy's warmth as he leaned up against his shoulder anxiously, and through the medical hard line he could feel the spark scanning through his original protocols for some guidelines to follow in such a situation. After their second failure Percy had discovered that there was in fact a protocol for the event that all data feeds were lost, and it was as dire as they had feared.

Poor slagger was programmed to self-terminate if all lines went down under the assumption that its integrity was wholly compromised and it was now in enemy hands. His sole function was threat elimination, and in enemy hands, he became the number one threat to Praxus, so it made a sad sort of sense that he would eliminate himself if the need arose.

"Remote feed termination acknowledged. Query status."

Ratchet sighed in relief and silently thanked Primus that he wasn't trying to stop the slagger from deactivating again. "Status reassignment of function to Autobot faction."

"Acknowledged. Query status Praxus."

"Autobot faction inclusive of Praxus."

"Acknowledged."

"Activate data consolidation."

"Activating..."

Ratchet sighed happily and turned to grin up at the beaming programmer. "I can't believe I'm finally saying this, but I think you actually did it. He went and updated his protocols independently from our pre-programming, and he's actually coding them to his permanent memory instead of losing them from his temporary cache if he crashes again. We should be able to upgrade his linguistics centers with the complete files next, and integrate those in with his logic processes."

"Congratulations doctor, he's a mech. Now we just have we have to figure out what to designate him."

 

* * *

  


_05.19.03 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Spark serial 1618152312 maintained online status for 03.05.04 (Joor.Groon.Breem). Assimilation of data for new status and function unhindered. Activation of visual feed for spark serial 1618152312 unhindered. Spark serial 1618152312 responded positively to 136 prompts as to item designations before becoming unresponsive. Spark serial 1618152312 maintained catatonic online status for 13.25 (Breem.Klik) before commencing deactivation sequence._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _06.03.01 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Full review of all data and sensory recordings for source of activation sequence._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _06.05.07 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Completed full sensor sweep of locale with security scan, mineralogical analysis, foreign particulate contamination sweeps, nanite function screening, and risk evaluation for potential environmental triggers of deactivation sequence._  
_Cause undetermined._

 _06.08.02 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Extensive review of sensory network with focus on potentially overlooked micro-receivers, time-delayed transmitters, or novel viral coding which may be triggering deactivation sequence in response to undetected remote signal._  
_No foreign objects found._

_07.13.01 (Deca-cycle.Joor.Groon)_  
_Cerebral patch installation completed. Final test to include Perceptor with full access to active thought processes. Medic ruled out as possibility due to necessity of focused skill required to prevent deactivation sequence from terminating unit._

 

* * *

  


Ratchet vented slowly, the hot air released from his overstressed systems doing little to cool him in the already overheated room. Across from him, Perceptor was equally tense, and a bit pale in the faceplates.

"Are you certain? You can still back out." He murmured softly, and reached over to gently squeeze the programmer's hand.

The programmer nodded firmly, and when he spoke it was with far more conviction than he appeared to have. "Absolutely. This is the only way we will be able to ascertain how something is triggering his deactivation sequence, or why he is triggering it himself. We can't afford for this to go on the way it has been if it is our intent to save him and restore his spark to a fully functional mech."

Ratchet stared intently into those brighter than usual optics, then nodded and attached the final wires connecting Perceptor's cortex to the Praxian's. "You're positive your firewalls will be adequate?"

"Absolutely. I have further reinforced them with several additional layers of required access. The probability of his being able to trigger my own deactivation sequence with his is less than 0.034%." Perceptor smiled. "I have absolute faith in my firewalls. I am far more concerned with my ability to locate the source of his distress."

"Well on that count, I have faith in you so, here goes nothing..."

 

 _Scanning..._  
_Scanning..._  
_Scanning..._  
_Total memory found 7.931 Zebibytes._  
_Creating /ramdrive on temporary cache._  
_Creating chatlog and eventsync on ramdrive..._  
_Done._  
_Starting boot sequence..._  
_Starting advanced power management daemon..._  
_APM bios found, advanced power management enabled._  
_Scanning for remote link... remote link not found._  
_Updating start up bios... remote link deactivated._  
_Initializing file Cyb318/medic2._

Ratchet sighed as the icy blue optics powered on and the Praxian turned his head to contemplate his surroundings. From his own data feed connected to the Praxian's medical port, he'd reviewed all of the diagnostic data and error messages that had scrolled across the mech's HUD at startup, and had been disappointed to find no report logged for the deactivation sequence and improper shut down prior to his reboot.

"Spark serial 1618152312-"

"Prowl."

"I'm sorry...?" Ratchet's optics flashed white in transient shock and glanced up and met Perceptor's startled ones. The O.M.N.I. had never interrupted their interrogations before. He waited for a direct order or he responded to a direct interrogation and nothing more.

"My designation is Prowl, medic Ratchet."

Ratchet's mouth worked in silent flabbergast. He hadn't programmed his designation into the O.M.N.I.'s databanks yet, much less his function.

"What makes you so sure that he is the medic and not I?" Perceptor leaned forward, unable to keep the excited glow from his faceplates.

The Praxian turned and contemplated him quietly for a moment. "It would be illogical for you to address him as Ratchet if that were not his designation, or as doctor if that were not his function. Just as it would be equally illogical for him to address you as Perceptor if that were not your designation."

Ratchet and Perceptor both gaped at one another in astonishment. Despite his previously catatonic appearance, he had very obviously been recording and analyzing the substance of their conversations about him if he was generating conclusions such as this one.

"And why Prowl?" Ratchet finally murmured softly as he stared thoughtfully at the quiet frame. "Who gave you that?"

"It is my designation." The Praxian replied flatly as though Ratchet were a sparkling who had just asked the most foolish question known to Primus.

"I see." The medic murmured, still scrolling through the various medical readouts when suddenly he found himself pushed out quite firmly by the Praxian's firewalls. He was about to scold him on the hazards of restricting medical access then thought better of it. Sparks had to be exceptionally strong to feel their own designations rather than accept one that was assigned to them, and activating his firewalls and removing an unwanted intruder was an even better sign of the spark's synaptic integration and control over his frame.

"Tell me Prowl, do you know why you are here?"

The mech sat up slowly and tentatively flexed his doorwings several times before responding in that same thoughtful, measured tone.

"I have been removed from Praxus. The logical conclusion is that my performance was unsatisfactory and therefor my removal was warranted. I have no active memory with any specific deficiencies in service however."

"Far from it..." Perceptor shifted his chair so that he could to continue to face the Praxian. "Your performance was exemplary and without par. For that reason your status has been raised to include all other city states."

The black and white doorwings flicked minutely and Perceptor almost grinned as the Praxian's disdainful irritation came rushing through the cortical patch.

"It is ineffectual to translocate my function for that purpose. Additional feeds should have been setup and transmitted to me in my original location. I require far more data than I previously had access to in order to effectively monitor multiple city states simultaneously and I am currently unable to access any useful feeds whatsoever."

"That's true..." Perceptor's voice trailed off and he frowned. A faint, momentary brush of sheer terror had flitted icily across his processor, though where it came from was beyond him. The Praxian flicked one doorwing in simultaneous acknowledgment, but gave no sign whatsoever of the sensation having originated from him.

"I'm sure you will be set up with all of the data feeds that you deem necessary when the time comes." Ratchet interjected with a raised optic in Perceptor's direction. The mech's sudden spaced out look almost had the medic leaping up from his chair thinking they were both about to deactivate, but the moment had passed as suddenly as it had appeared.

"I will comprise a list of necessary feeds. Do you have the necessary monitoring specifications of these additional city states ready for upload?"

"That information will be provided at your debriefing once we have cleared you medically."

Another irritated flick of doorwings accompanied by a wave of irritation washed over Perceptor and he struggled to fight the urge to laugh outright. The enforcer frame chosen for this spark to be placed in had been surprisingly appropriate: Prowl was wound up even tighter than the Praxian enforcers were renowned for being and he was making it quite clear that he didn't have any use whatsoever for the frivolities of down time.

"What is required for clearance?"

"We're figuring that out as we go."

The irritation grew and the doorwings raised ever so slightly. Ratchet's gaze had been riveted on these since Prowl's abrupt introduction and found himself silently thanking Smokescreen for his gambling addiction. The mech had spent vorns developing even tighter controls over his doorwings and their tells than other Praxians, which made analyzing Prowl's minute twitches feasible now. 

"You are required to medically clear me however you have no set definition for this medical clearance. That is highly ineffectual and illogical. As physical and psychiatric evaluations are governed by pre-determined values of a set range and tolerance there must be an equivalent pre-determined array of which values must be evaluated in order to approve my medical clearance or this clearance loses all validity."

Ratchet felt his faceplates warm and suddenly found himself wishing he'd held off on that language module upgrade. Perceptor shrugged his shoulders helplessly at him, which only made him scowl more. Talking for less than a dozen breems and the mech was already a sass mouthed frag of a glitch!

"Now see here you upstart! I won't be lectured on how to determine if a mech is fit or not by a spark-in-a-box who hasn't even taken his first steps! When your function is upgraded to that of medic then I will take your input under consideration but not an astro-second before that!"

The Praxian, infuriatingly enough, remained completely complacent as the medic fumed. "Is walking a required value of assessment for medical clearance?"

"Of course it frag well is!"

"Very well." The Praxian swung his legs over the side of his berth and before either bot could move stood and attempted to walk several paces. He was jerked to an abrupt halt by the cables linking him to Perceptor. As they tugged taughtly at their processors, the Praxian frowned and stepped back to stare at the red programmer as though only just truly noticing his presence.

"Is this also required of medical clearance?"

If he didn't know better, Ratchet would have sworn the spark was getting sarcastic on him...

"Of course it is." He snapped as he snatched his hand scanner to gather the data he was no longer being fed from the medical port. "Do you think we randomly plug into strange mechs just for the fun of it? And don't even think about answering that... It was rhetorical."

The Praxian looked as though he were about to say something, then stopped and stared intently at a point on the wall behind them silently.

"Prowl? Woohoo... Cybertron to Prowl...? Percy...?" Ratchet hissed when waving his hand in front of the Praxian's slack faceplates garnered no reaction from him whatsoever.

"I... I don't know... It feels... It feels terrifying... and hot... Ratchet it's so hot..."

Ratchet frowned and moved around the berth to scan the programmer. His faceplates had gone quite pale all of a sudden, and his spark rate had spiked dramatically. It made no sense... He turned and scanned the Praxian again and received the same unflappably normal readouts from the Praxian.

"Who does Percy? Prowl...?"

"I... I don't... so hot... it... it burns..."

Alarmed, Ratchet raced back around the berth to reconnect to Prowl's medical port. Perceptor was gasping, his cooling fans had all kicked on, and he could see the faint steam of coolant evaporating from his lines. How in the name of Unicron was the spark-in-a-box triggering such an intense physical reaction to unseen stimuli in the other mech?

"Hold on Perce... I'm deactivating the patch..."

"No... I... hot... it's so hot... it hurts..."

The programmer keened sharply as he doubled over and rolled out of his chair and onto the floor. The Praxian made no sign of having noticed anything even as the sharp tug to the connections sent him crashing to the floor with him in an undignified heap.

"Hang on... just a few more..." Ratchet cussed profusely as he frantically input his medical overrides to cut through the newly activated firewalls in order to begin the disconnect process for the cortical patch. Primus help him either this slagging Praxian was going for a swim in the slag pits, or Sentinel was for sending him here in the first place.

"Oh Primus..." Perceptor gasped and moaned softly as the programming linking them was deactivated and the cables removed. "Thank you... Primus... Thank you..."

"Percy what the frag was that?" Even as he eyed the programmer, he was already rushing though the sequences to power down the Praxian. He could actually feel it this time through the medical port. There was some sort of surge trying to activate his deactivation sequence, while his security systems tried futilely to stop the chain reaction that was triggered. Belatedly, he cursed himself for not having thought to upgrade those systems to react more appropriately to threats to self. Before they could fail this time as they had on the previous attempts though, Ratchet was able to lock his systems back down into full medical stasis.

He sighed ruefully as he pulled his cable out of the Praxian's port and stared grimly at the mangled wings. There was at least another deca-cycle's worth of work right there to repair them from the horrible way that he had fallen on one. Right now though, he was not the mech in pain. Crawling over to Perceptor, Ratchet pulled him into a seated position and was startled when the mech clung desperately to him and curled into as small of a quivering ball as his lanky frame would allow.

"Hey now... Shh... It's alright now... Percy... Come on now..." Slowly he rocked his frame back and forth in a gentle, predictable rhythm and to his own surprise, lyrics to a lullaby he hadn't heard in vorns tumbled softly from his vocalizer as though he'd recited them every night to a bitlet of his own.

"Hush... hush... The bolts are all on tight... Turn off your vocalizer... Power down for night... The recharge cycle calls... Primus in his might... Keeps us from pitfalls... Til the joor's first light..."

His spark coiled tightly at the long pushed aside images of his own carrier's faded blue finish and strong arms encircling his earlier frames. It hurt to dwell on the images that the sounds brought up, but the effect now was just as it had been on a tiny gray and red mechling all those vorns ago. The trembling stilled, the keening softened, and slowly the red mech's death grip on him loosened as he composed himself.

"Percy, what was it that you felt?"

The red mech shuttered his optics and placed his hand over his spark for several breems and vented deeply several times to steady himself before he finally answered.

"I can't be certain... I mean obviously no one could because if that was what I think it was then there would be nothing on file to compare it to." He murmured softly and rubbed at his chest plating as though there were some hideous blot there that he was trying to buff off. "It was so... He was so terrified... I don't know where he was... But something happened... He burned, or melted, or perhaps that's what it would feel like to overheat... Primus it's like those old horror files of live mechs being dropped into the slag pits by the Quintessons when their frames were too old to be of use."

"Who felt that Percy? Prowl?" Ratchet frowned and stared at the still frame in stasis lock. His core temp and spark rate had remained completely unaffected by whatever it was Percy had absorbed.

"No... Someone else..." The red mech rasped hoarsely as he struggled to pull himself together and regain control of his involuntary systems. "Ratch... I think... I think a bond he had... was severed..."

Ratchet stared.

One hub spark.

Six spoke sparks connected to it.

Six unexplainable crashes.

Six broken bonds.

Six involuntary attempts to follow the other spark to the well.


	10. Chapter 10

_Present Day_

Ratchet swallowed hard. His glossa felt thick and swollen and his mouth and throat incredibly dry. Even the sparkling violet beauty of the Vosian liquor had lost its appeal to him. Instead of finishing the last mouthful in his cube he merely swirled the liquid about with a rhythmic flick of his wrist.

Across from him Optimus had opened his mouth silently several times already, as horrified and at a loss for words now as he himself had been then. The breaking of a bond was something that just wasn't spoken of. He'd never even _heard_ of a bonded mech outliving their mate for more than a handful of groons, much less witnessed one do so repeatedly.

The emotional force of it had very nearly taken Percy with it too...

Much closer than even he had been comfortable admitting to the programmer.

"Yeah. It really leaves the taste of space rust and aft on your glossa."

"Not the exact words I would have chosen... But yes." Optimus murmured softly.

"Sure as Pit wasn't what I ever thought I would be putting a patient through. And like the ignorant aft Sentinel played me for, I didn't truly clue in until the last one. Don't think I could have endured watching him go through that over and over again if I had known. Slag it, I _know_ I wouldn't have been able to. I was the forcing him to survive them."

"I don't understand why any mech would have designed a system that would do such a thing..."

"Yeah. It's more like the horrors that came out of Shockwave's lab later on than something us 'civilized' mechs would have done." Ratchet spat out the word civilized with such venom that Optimus winced.

"Where did they originate from?"

"Who knows... maybe they were the last sparks left over from the first gestault project. I don't know. Jazz couldn't find out anything. Prowl sure didn't know. We just let it lie and tried to move on. Then all Pit broke loose and next thing you know the whole damn planet had gone fragging mad."

Ratchet sighed and rose shakily to his pedes. His processor throbbed, his tank hurt, his optics were feeding back something fierce and he was in that sort of masochistic mood where the pain just all felt right. He deserved this pain. He deserved a hundred times this pain. It was still only a fraction of what he knew he had put another spark through.

Optimus watched him pace back and forth sadly for a time, then reached over, picked up the medic's drink and threw it back himself with a grimace.

"And what of him now?"

Ratchet sighed then left the office, beckoning the Prime to follow.

Rung smiled grimly up at them both as they exited. "Perceptor is off to recharge and Wheeljack just stepped out a few breems ago to get some oil and energon. There hasn't been any change."

Ratchet nodded as he punched in his clearance codes and the two mechs stepped into the dimly lit room which currently had the title of second most secure room on the planet. The first, of course, being Red Alert's.

Optimus felt his tanks churn painfully and even the warm, reassuring pulse of the matrix did little to relieve his spark of the distress he felt at the sight of that tiny black and white frame dwarfed in comparison by the full sized berth he was laid out on.

"There was just so much damage..." Ratchet's voice was hoarse and he paused when he reached the berthside to straighten the energon, oil, and coolant lines and adjust the thermal regulating mesh draped over the tiny frame. "By itself, his spark had the output to power a frame at least three times his size. I never really thought much about it once we had him integrated back then, but the energy demands of his TAC-net are tremendous, and those nearly triple when his battle computer is kicked on. Damn thing drained the light clean out of the previous sparks that had been paired with it in a handful of vorns."

"I always thought it was the stress of the battles that wiped him out so badly."

Ratchet merely shook his helm. "No, it was the energy drain those systems placed on his spark. And the stubborn fragger refused to be the officer sitting in the back giving orders while swilling energon and letting others fight. It was an ordeal just to get him to start carrying the gelled concentrates to pop discretely. I had to threaten him with getting 'Jack to weld a custom portable energon line to his back and on top of that I threatened to have Percy add some core coding that would turn on all his lights and sirens if his level dropped to 20% and block him from turning them off until they were back over 60%."

Optimus smiled ruefully as he stroked the tiny helm. Even though he knew the spark was in deep stasis and the frame hooked up to spark support, he couldn't deny the overpowering urge to comfort the delicate thing. Somehow he could just picture Prowl standing there calmly calculating the odds of Ratchet actually following through on his threats and how that would impact their battle odds before agreeing to carrying the gels in his subspace.

Not that he blamed him. Those nasty little things were positively vile. He had brought it up once to Jazz, who had outright laughed at his suggestion that they assign someone to make them taste better. Finally the saboteur had pointed out that someone had already been assigned to specifically make them taste _worse_. Apparently when they were first designed by spec ops so that emergency rations took up less of their valuable subspace and refueling didn't force them to stop in the middle of a critical mission, there had been more than a few rather notorious - and very _very_ quickly covered up - episodes involving _highly_ overcharged spec ops mechs running very amok.

Gently, Ratchet folded the thermal sheet down and Optimus started backwards violently.

The sparkling's chestplates were pried open and locked into place and a device had been bolted over his spark chamber. The center of the structure pulsed a deep green, while four lines ran from it and into some sort of generator tucked underneath the berth.

"You read the report on Slingshot's injuries, right?"

Optimus nodded as he stared transfixed at the pulsing green light that throbbed in sync with the bitlet's spark pulse.

"The other sparklings still have all of their higher coding and memories. They've just been locked out of it by their processors. They recognize those files and programs as belonging to a fourth frame and so block all access attempts until their processors are mature enough. Similarly, Prowl's TAC-net and battle computer are completely disabled and locked off."

"But if his spark..."

"Exactly. His spark overheated massively after whatever it was that did this." The medic gestured at the tiny frame. "The others had some heavy duty programming issues but were stabilized easily enough. But Prowl... His frame was ruined. Melted through most of Slingshot's plating from the poor mech trying not to drop him and just keep ahold of his spark chamber. He's one tough nut to have brought him back." 

Ratchet tugged the sheet back up over the bitlet's chest. "Wheeljack was able to jury rig this energy siphon to regulate the output, and thankfully Smokescreen made it far enough through Praxian Medical before he was thrown out for gambling to have the schematics of their first frames."

"And everything..." Optimus trailed off. What good was saving the spark if everything that had made him Prowl was lost? No wonder Jazz leapt at every reason to leave the base. If his own spark ached so how was the saboteur enduring this?

"We don't know." Ratchet sighed. "There's no processor activity to speak of, his spark resonance is way off, and with the siphon confounding the results of most of the other tests we could perform all we can do now is wait. 'Jack is working on a smaller siphon with a bit more control, but honestly... Even if he survives this, I don't think I can reverse it."

"I see. Does Jazz know?" The Prime reluctantly stroked the tiny helm one last time then followed the medic back out to the med bay.

Ratchet shook his head. "Not the specifics. I just didn't have the spark for it after recent events. Those two were so fragging enigmatic over the whole thing, no one is sure what they are to one another, if anything at all. One joor they're at each other's throats at a stategic meeting, the next Rung is asking me how to reassure Red Alert that when he finds Jazz sneaking out of Prowl's quarters in the middle of the recharge cycle on the security cams that he is not a Decepticon sleeper agent and that he was absolutely not in there assassinating Prowl in his recharge."

Optimus sighed. "It's possible we may never know now."

  


* * *

 

"Where are we going?" The small green mechlet skipped every few steps to keep up with the taller mechs, the tiny fingers of his left hand wrapped tightly around one of Kup's smallest fingers.

"To pay our respects Bitty."

"All of us?"

"That's right."

"You too?" The bitlet twisted his helm to peer up at the silver jet to his right.

Topspin smiled. "Yeah, me too. You probably don't remember him, but Twin-Twist would have been here 'cept Hatchet wouldn't let him out."

"Topspin!" Sandstorm hissed from behind him and smacked the jet upside his helm. "Don't say that! He'll repeat it!"

The jet shrugged and winked irreverently at the bitlet. "Bitty's fine with it, aintcha, Bitty?"

Springer frowned and skipped a few more steps. "If he's broke then you should ask Ratchet to fix him. He fixes us real good and then Twinties could come too if he was all fixed up and not busted no more."

Whirl's optic flickered with laughter as Topspin's faceplates twitched.

"Twin-TWIST Bitty... Gotta get mechs degs right or they'll-"

Sandstorm smacked him upside the helm again, interrupting him before he could say something that would earn them all a visit from the Hatchet.

"They'll be really _sad_ that you don't get their designations right."

"Uh right... sad... Guys I don't really think I'm uh... forged out for this sorta thing..."

"You'll _learn_ mech. You'll all learn." Kup replied. "Ain't much use for wreckers now what with Megs and Galv off the rosters. Even if we take it upon ourselves to hunt down each war criminal hiding out there the list'll empty out sometime. Y'all are gonna have to learn t'settle down. Hopefully with a nice mech or femme of yer own and next thing y'know y'might have a bitlet of yer own."

"You gonna have a bitlet?" Springer blurted, his optics wide saucers as he suddenly became much more interested in the jet. "Can I play with him? What's his desnation? When do I get to see him? Are you carrying him? Who's your bond mate? If you have a bond mate and half of your spark is in Twinties does that make them Twinties bond mate too?"

"DeSIGnation. And no, never, no, no, and NO. Twin-TWIST and I ain't never gonna have no scrappin-"

Another thwack, this time from Kup, who stopped walking so that he could turn and glare at them all.

"I'm not telling you this one more time. We don't teach bitlets them words. I don't care what Springer used to say or how often he said it. He ain't sayin' it now and you lot ain't gonna teach it to him. I know it ain't easy what with you all getting your fourth frames in the middle of a war, but we used to all be good mechs. Respectable. The kind that you could take out in public. If y'can't change then you'll just hafta go. Ain't no other way around it. War's done. Peace has no need for some glitched ex-wreckers."

Springer stared at Kup in awe while the rest of the mechs gaped. In the end it was the bitlet who broke the silence first.

"You said _glitched_."

"Ah frag it all."

The other Wreckers snickered quietly as Kup threw up his arms in mock surrender and then swung the bitlet up to sit on his shoulders to distract him from any further questioning as to the meaning of those forbidden words and why exactly they were forbidden for him to say when everyone else already knew them.

"Right now Bitty we're here to say goodbye to some real good mechs. They gave their sparks to protect others, and it's thanks to them all that we even get to be here today."

"Were they your friends?"

"Yeah Bitty, they were. They were your friends too once, and you'll remember them again some joor."

"Oh. When can we play with them?"

Whirl stopped and stared at the naive little mech, his optic dimming. Behind him Sandstorm gave him a gentle push and clasped a hand on his shoulder.

"We can't Bitty. Not 'til All are One."

"Oh. When's that?"

"Hopefully never..." Sandstorm muttered under his breath.

"You don't want to be one?" Big blue optics peered up at him.

"It's just... It's just something that the big mechs say Bitty. It means that we're never really apart because we all come from the Well so we're all a part of each other." Kup knuckled the tiny helm fondly. "Now be a good mechlet and say thank you and goodbye with that special prayer I taught you."

Springer nodded as Kup swung him back down to the ground in front of the towering statue of Ultra Magnus. He had to give Sunstreaker kudos. It looked just like the fallen warrior. It was painful to gaze out at the devastation around them, and see these scattered statues that were slowly forming a perimeter around New Iacon. They stood with their backs to the new capital, and faced out into the empty expanse of wasteland. Even in death, their tribute would defend the city against invaders.

He reached down and fondly knuckled the bitlet's head as Springer's primary vocal modules repeatedly stumbled on some of the words that were still too advanced for his processor to assimilate.

"Really wish y'could've seen this Mags..." He whispered softly as he touched the statue's hand, his optics never leaving the little mech's faceplates. "It's the very embodiment of what we all wanted to protect and rebuild for, with a pulsing spark and working cogs and it's real amazing to see how everyone changed when they arrived."

He would have to try and have a talk with Perceptor about trying to leave out some of the wreckers more gruesome memories when they tried to restore the mech. Right now, it was like watching the clock unwind and unravel all of the mistakes of a lifetime of war with it.

As if sensing the eyes on him, the mechlet raised his head and ended the prayer with confidence.

"'Til all are one."


	11. Spec Oops

The best - and worst - thing about spec ops is that sometimes you're just not sure who's running the show: you, or spec ops. Sure, on a battlefield or deep in enemy territory where a normal protocol could have disastrous consequences for you and your squad, those protocols are a handy thing to have programmed in. But then what after? It wasn't the first time Jazz had wondered about the answer to that question. He'd wondered about it when they'd first awoken on the ark, unsure if the 'cons were still around or not. He'd wondered when Megatron fell. He'd wondered when they'd heard rumor of Starscream's deactivation. He'd wondered again when Galvatron had fallen.

And he had been wondering right before his systems sent him into a mandatory shut down for below critical charge levels.

Now though, it was those selfsame protocols that were running the mech as Jazz's sensitive security systems jerked on with a start and his right hand immediately shot out and wrapped steely fingers around the slender wrist that had dropped onto his left pauldron. In one fluid movement he had pulled the offending mech forward up and off their pedes and flipped them onto their back on the table he had been napping on while he himself stood and assumed an offensive stance over their prostrate frame. Like the expert saboteur he was, his free hand just seemed to materialize an energon blade out of thin air that was instantly pressed close enough to the mech's throat to sheer off the first thin layers of metal and send the scent of singed paint wafting up to his olfactory sensors.

For her part, the femme had the good sense to go absolutely still under his hand and patiently wait for the light of recognition to flicker across Jazz's dim optics as he finished his boot protocols and the mech regained control over spec ops.

"Good joor to you too."

The black and white said nothing. He remained frozen in place and continued to stare dumbly at the blade pressed the first few microns into her throat plating just under her chin. It wasn't the first time he'd nearly offlined a comrade, but each time jolted his processor as he realized that last time had not been the last as he had once hoped. Finally, her patience wore out and the femme flicked her wrist upards to twist the datapad she was holding up into his line of sight.

"Unless you have a... _better_... suggestion to pass the next few orns..." She smirked as she twisted the word sensuously and more than a little suggestively, "Then it might be a dram or two easier for both of us if you were to allow me to be upright while updating you on all of yesterday's reports, Sir."

Reports.

A sick realization darted across his faceplates for a klik before they smoothed back into the relaxed neutrality drilled into him by millenia of command.

Commanders don't panic.

Commanders don't wallow in grief.

Commanders don't lose control.

Slag the fragging command.

"Sorry 'bout that... Spec Ops y'know?" The weakly mumbled apology sounded tired and pathetic even to him, but the femme gave no sign that she had noticed.

"I know, Sir." She replied with a surprising level of nonchalance as he stepped back into a more relaxed stance and sub-spaced the blade. Ordinarily he would have been more than a bit interested by the fluid way she easily twisted her slender frame upright, but his processor still ached from lack of charge. Her hands never went to the slit in her ebony throat plating, nor did she wipe away the minuscule trickle of energon that the blade had garnered. He found himself unable to tear his optics from the fine line that wove unsteadily from the slit, down her throat, and ended about midway down her chest plates. The light blue almost glowed against the deep burnt umber finish.

"Iacon rescue team alpha reported back thirteen more live rescues and thirty-seven salvaged. Three are still reported as critically unstable but the other ten are scheduled for routine repairs. Rescue team beta reported only three live rescues, all critical, and five more salvaged. They've reached the second lower level and have requested a new assignment to a more active area. Medix has sent word that he supports the request to move. The severity of the crushing injuries present on all of the frames found on the second level can only be anticipated to worsen as we excavate down through the third and fourth levels as Blaster has already confirmed with sonar that those levels are fully collapsed with no detectable open pockets that could have served as shelter. They have both recommended a refocus on the border along Kalis since it seems the Seekers flew in from that direction with a strafing bombing run and Wheeljack has described the temporary structures erected there as having multiple communal shelters that had a 48% chance of surviving unscathed. Any mechs who made it to those would be trapped under rubble but are extremely likely to have suffered minimal to no injuries. Currently only 17.2% of the mechs from that district are accounted for."

"Any mechs who made it there, huh?" Jazz murmured softly, his optics dimming. It went unsaid that not many were likely to have done so thanks to the complete lack of warning prior to the attack. Worse still was the likelihood of most of the bodies being found immediately outside the blast doors. Far too often than he would like to admit, he had seen and heard of mechs too possessed by their own panic and frantic self-preservation. Once one of those mechs made it in, the doors were usually slammed shut on any unfortunate enough to have arrived after them.

"Well when you really think about it Sir, there's really not much difference between searching for the mechs who didn't make it out in time and searching for the mechs who made it to a shelter on time. The only real difference is that we know with the shelters that there's a good chance we'll find more than one not only in the same spot, but likely in good condition as well with substantially less effort invested into the rescue. If we wait too long before going to those sites they'll deactivate from energon deprivation."

"You sound confident about this move."

"It's what Inferno would have done, Sir."

Jazz's back strut stiffened slightly at the painfully familiar name. Turning, he stared pensively at the femme, his optics locking onto hers with the cold and calculating intensity he normally reserved for a hostile interrogation. "You were familiar enough with Inferno that you feel that confident that you know what he would have done in this situation?"

The femme didn't flinch. "He trained me personally for search and rescue."

"Search and rescue...? But I thought you were one of Elita's?"

"I am now. But I started out under his mentorship on Cybertron before he left to reinforce Prime's team on Earth. My mentor was Firestar after all. It's not a skill set you soon forget, especially during a war. Comes in quite handy on recovery missions or when tracking some con filth that came too close. Sir."

Jazz stared quietly at the odd femme and struggled to keep his faceplates neutral despite the intense urge to smirk in amusement at the hastily added 'Sir'. She was possessed by a quiet confidence that radiated out from her bearing and conveyed a calming aura of strength despite her tiny frame. She felt like the sort of bot you wanted to have standing nearby when all Pit broke loose. Not the kind that dropped to the ground like a cyber-possum, or who turned and fled faster than a metallico cat dropped into the Rust Sea. The kind who stood their ground and braced themselves against the onslaught and had your back without you ever needing to ask or check over your shoulder to see if they were still there.

"Alright then. Confirm the transfer request. I want to be immediately informed of the results with each of the bunkers they uncover."

"With pleasure, Sir. I'll keep you personally appraised of their progress." She snapped to attention with a smart salute - and did she just arch her back strut like that on purpose? - then spun on her heel strut and strode purposefully away.

Damn femme probably knew too that he would stand there and watch her delightfully flexing aft until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. His Sire had always warned him femmes were trouble...

And he hadn't even gotten this one's designation.

The saboteur frowned thoughtfully as he sat back down and picked up the tablet of reports he had been reviewing when he had dozed off into recharge.

  


* * *

  


Hot Spot sank back into one of the chairs in the rec room and offlined his optics to better enjoy the silence of the nearly empty room with obvious relief. After the past few joors, there was one thing that he was now more certain of than he had ever been of anything else in his entire short existence. Mentorship was absatively and posolutely not for him... Ever. This whole experience had had him rushing down to the medbay to see Ratchet earlier that afternoon to beg to have a carrier test performed on himself right away. The normally grumpy old medic had completely misunderstood his reasons why though and had been genuinely devastated to give him the news that he was not a carrier.

The protectobot had never known such intense relief.

For such tiny bundles of bolts and braces, the blasted things were like miniaturized self-regenerating dynamos. Their energy levels never dipped a joule while awake and while they slept frequently, they also didn't sleep half as long as he was used to. He and his brothers hadn't had a single uninterrupted recharge cycle since they'd been released from the medbay, and he found himself wondering what in the Pit he had done to piss off the Hatchet so badly that he punished him with this scraplet infestation.

Cosmic Rust was probably easier to deal with. 

Across the table there was a metallic scraping and thump of a chair being dragged across the floor and set down, followed by the far heavier thunk of a frame collapsing upon it. Smaller than his, but not one of his brothers. Outwardly, Hot Spot gave no sign he had noticed the new arrival. Perhaps if he ignored whoever the mech was long enough they would finally appreciate that he really just wanted to be alone for a change.

Not that a gestalt was ever really alone.

Ever.

Not that he didn't love his brothers, or begrudge them the complete and utter lack of privacy. It was just too complicated. Any mech he tried to get to know, would find themselves completely exposed to all of his brothers simultaneously. It was why most gestalts stuck to their unit and didn't bond outside of it. Still, once in a rusted cycle he wondered what it might be like to actually have to get to know some mech one on one. To keep secrets and have secrets kept from you. To have little surprises dropped on you by the ones you loved most without already knowing they were coming.

To not be startled out of recharge in a panic because one of them was crying for energon in the middle of the ornly cycle because his little tank couldn't hold that much to start with and he burned through it that much faster trying to generate enough heat for his tiny, underpowered systems.

A soft clinking to his right made him online his optics, and Silverbolt slowly came into focus setting down three cubes of energon before the jet settled into a chair himself. A quick glance to his left side told him that it had been Slingshot who had sat earlier. The jet's colors were finally starting to come back in, and while not as vibrant as before just yet, he looked a considerable sight better than he had when he had first staggered in from his impromptu shuttle rescue.

"How's the reconstruction going?" He was genuinely envious just then that they were out there working on rebuilding while his team was stuck bitlet-sitting.

Silverbolt sighed and paused noticeably before he answered in his lowest voice. "Well enough. Ratchet doesn't expect many more survivors at this point though. He dismissed most of the emergency field hospital reinforcements today. It's mostly scouting and clearing out all the smaller debris and wreckage and helping Hoist plan out the reconstruction until..."

"I should be cleared to combine again soon. Then we'll really be rolling." Slingshot finished for him with a lopsided grin. Hot Spot felt for the aerial's team leader. It was agony to watch one of your brothers suffer. For one, you were never just watching. You were feeling it all at the same time, and while the welds were finally strong enough for Ratchet to begin sanding them down and smooth out the plating, they still hurt from the inside out. He still remembered the sting from some of Groove's old welds. 

Slingshot frowned at the energon cube, his grin fading away to the irritation he truly felt, and scuffed a pede restlessly against the table leg. "Superion'll make scrap of this mess real quick. Right now though it feels like this whole slagging planet is going to the Pit and is determined to take all of us down with it."

"Shot..."

"It's true. There's three services a joor, several mechs going to the slag at each one, and they've all but announced that there's nothing left to hope for and we're into body recovery and sweeping away the debris. We don't even get proper mausoleums because the decay would set in faster than we can build them and command is freaked out over a potential carbonic acid outbreak like the one after the Great War. We don't get any explanations or answers, and then out of nowhere we get four sparklings. Four! But there were five of them in the shuttle! Why the frag don't they just give as a single slagging straight answer!"

Hot Spot cringed. It wasn't anything he hadn't thought quietly to himself, but it was the first time he'd heard any mech vocalize those thoughts.

"I don't think they have any to give." Silverbolt murmured softly, and pushed his pede up against his brother's in silent comfort. His brother had become increasingly agitated as his welds began disappearing under cosmetic repairs, and he knew it was because he was afraid that the same quiet disappearance is all Prowl would get. "We're soldiers. If they say they're working on it, then we believe them and accept that the right answer will come. I don't think the NAILS process the same way we do though."

"They don't." Hot Spot added. "Defensor worked with the humans a lot. Civvies there would panic and flee if they thought we didn't have control of the situation. Usually that made things worse, so we had to act as though we always knew the plan and it was just too fragging classified to share."

Slingshot's optics met his evenly. "Lives should never be classified. Prowl's saved our afts more times than I can count and now..."

"Maybe they're just waiting to break the news gently..." Hot Spot felt for him. Everyone knew the aerialbots had a soft spot for Prowl ever since Air Raid had gone down behind enemy lines and Magnus had vetoed a rescue. Prowl had gone against the commander and authorized a black ops rescue. Jazz and Ironhide had both been a part of it of course, but it was Prowl who had given them the eight variants of contingency plans, and it had been Prowl who assumed the sole full responsibility unflinchingly as Magnus had raged about the blatant insubordination, disrespect, and undermining his authority in Prime's absence.

When everyone in Prime's team had refused, Magnus had brought in the Wreckers to escort Prowl to the brig, which had caused even more amusement as Prowl had already voluntarily agreed to await Optimus in the brig, which made Magnus's insistence on an armed escort pure ridicule. It had become a source of more than one whispered joke to their team, especially when Optimus arrived several groons later and he had not even waited to ask Magnus what had happened before pulling Prowl from the brig.

"That's complete pit slag and you know it. They haven't told Blue a single thing about his status, and he's the closest thing to a family that Prowl has. Enforcers didn't have real families so there's no one else to tell."

"Yeah... I guess..."

"Maybe they just want to tell Jazz first?" Hot Spot offered hopefully.

"I thought they hated each other." Silverbolt frowned.

"Well..." Hot Spot paused. The aerial bot did have a point there. He had never heard of a strategy meeting that didn't end with those two in a fierce stare down and a "friendly" discussion that could be heard even through the blast doors two levels down. "Have you ever seen them fight outside of a planning session?"

"Pshaw. That doesn't mean anything. How many times do you see them in the same room at the same time outside of a planning session? I've talked to Prowl during his off time probably less than a dozen times total."

"Yeah, but Jazz is Spec Ops. You get to know only what he wants you to know, when he wants you to know it." Silverbolt leaned forward and rested his chin on one hand. "Just because we don't see any good reason for them to have at it doesn't mean there isn't."

Slingshot snorted. "Yeah. Like luring the cons to attack us if Prime ever falls. Hey look at those dipstick Autobots with the bickering second and third... They'll be easy targets for us now hur hur hur..."

"Don't be an aft." Silverbolt swiped at his brother with feigned irritation. Then jumped and glared at Hot Spot, who had kicked him under the table. "Hey! What was that for?"

"Filters mechs."

The two jets turned and winced in unison as Wheelie and Blaster entered the lounge.

"He didn't hear that... did he?" Silverbolt winced.

"Nah. You'd already be hearing about it if he had. Bitlet's a professional tattletale." Hot Spot grinned in a low voice before calling out to the duo across the room. "Hey Wheels, how's it rolling?"

The orange minibot smiled. How he could be so cheerful with both legs awaiting reconstruction and his truncated torso attached to a rolling cart was beyond the comprehension of the three mechs seated there, but there he was.

"Follow paths on spinning wheels, with Blaster playing games with zeal."

Hot Spot smiled as the small red mechlet burst into peals of laughter and flung his arms about the orange minibot's neck again. The little music mech was enthralled by the rhyming minibot thankfully, which gave them all a break. All Wheelie had to do was talk and Blaster was entertained for groons. The mechlet was probably doing wonders to distract him from the appalling number of his colleagues and team mates whose names had made it onto the wrong lists. 

"Mini music mech sings a song that makes the joor feel much less long."

"Problem is he keeps singing it well into the orn." Hot Spot snorted as he reached down and swung the little red mech up onto his lap. 

"Nu-uh. Can I haf sum?" Two bright blue optics looked up into the red ones with intolerable adorability as little hands reached for the half-empty cube.

"It's reg. Do they get something different?"

Hot Spot nodded. "Yeah, but Ratchet says a little regular grade won't hurt their systems so long as it's not more than a few ounces and not more often than twice a deca-cycle."

Blaster bounced about happily as he tilted the cube that was nearly larger than his helm and drank. Hot Spot kept a finger under the cube to support the weight and watched closely as the volume changed, taking it away when he felt the bitlet had had enough.

"It's not too-"

They all looked up in surprise as the intercom crackled on and the low siren that signaled another service chimed. With a low sigh, the group cleaned off the table and trudged to the courtyard to bid farewell to more of their comades.


	12. Plan C

Sideswipe jumped against the corridor wall as Perceptor came barreling down on him like some gore covered bull at that ridiculous human event he'd seen once on a holovid. The red twin stared slack jawed as the red Jeep skidded and, obviously unable to make such a sharp turn in his dumpy vehicle mode, the mech transformed, slammed heavily into the wall then launched himself off and down the cross corridor without so much as a shake, transforming back into his alt mode as he flew around the corner and out of sight.

Tires squealed, the engine revved, and the acrid scent of burnt rubber wafted back to the stunned frontliner who continued to gape dumbly after the normally prim and proper scientist who normally needed nothing short of an apocalypse to get him to move briskly, much less with such reckless abandon.

"What... the... frag..."

The words were scarcely more than a half muttered breath and his mouth hadn't even fully closed from muttering them when the same scene repeated itself, although this time he failed to move out of Wheeljack's path in time. The two mechs collided chest to chest, the force of which sent them both flying back. Sideswipe's plating clacked loudly as he slammed hard into the floor and skidded some twenty feet with Wheeljack sprawled across him in a tangle of limbs. The shrill scream of metal being dragged across metal rang in his audials and deep crimson streaks of Sideswipe's paint now decorated the floor.

Aside from the wind being knocked out of his vents with a startled 'oomph' the engineer didn't react to their collision other than to leap off of him and scramble back up to his feet to continue his mad dash.

Apology?

Completely forgotten.

"WHAT THE FRAG?!?!" Sideswipe glowered at the silver aft as he vanished around the same corner Perceptor had, his angry shout echoing back to him. Not a single teeny tiny word of apology? Or even a backwards glance to make sure he hadn't been maimed or deactivated? Had everyone here gone stark raving mad? Unless this was all supposed to be part of some sort of slagged up interfacing game those two played with one another...

Which actually, come to think about it... Maybe he should try and sneak a camera into that lab they shared. They did spend an _awful_ lot of time cooped up in there together and with all those crazy experiments there had to be at least a few that would be useful for some sort of weird kink science geek fetish. There could be some good credits in it for him if something they had in there turned out to be easily duplicated and fun to use.

He was still working out the more devious logistics of it as the Aerial bots passed him heading the opposite direction. In the back of his processor he took note of how they all slowed drastically and stared at him as they passed, but said nothing. For his part he mumbled a distracted greeting to their curiously arched optic ridges which went unreturned. He was allowed some time off so what were those lazy jets gaping at anyway? They were the slaggers still on light duty while waiting for medical clearance to form Superion and start on the real grunt work while he'd been at it with the very first rescue crew without much more than a recharge break since.

His tone was far more snappish when Cosmos had the misfortune of bumping into him two corridors later. The little green minibot froze in place in the center of the hallway and opened and closed his mouth several times at a complete loss for words, and Sideswipe finally brushed past him with an angry snarl. His field was starting to crackle about him as he continued stalking his way down the hall, now thoroughly irritated by everyone's behavior.

_/I swear Sunny if I get one more half-afted look from some mech, that mech is going to lose half his face./_

His brother's concerned nudge did little to mollify his ruffled field though.

_/What's up Sides?/_

_/What's up?! What's up?! I'll tell you what's fragging up! This whole base is losing it and-/_

Sideswipe froze before he could go on with his angry tirade as it finally hit him what his brother had said, and it gave him pause to reflect on his current state. Sunny _always_ snapped at him when he called him that. Always. Absolutely no exceptions. _Ever_. He had completely overlooked it this time, which meant Sunstreaker was genuinely worried about the vibes that his twin was pulsing across their bond. If they were justified, Sunny would already be mounting his own counterattack to back him up against these perceived slights. But he wasn't.

Which meant he was overreacting.

Sunny was the twin who overreacted, and always for the same reason: his oh so precious paint. Sideswipe was supposed to be the twin who laughed at it all, shrugged it off, and just kept right on going like it was all some game, which it usually was. Sideswipe sighed and rubbed his chest plates over his spark chamber. It thrummed with palpable irritation and he vented softly as he resumed trudging down the corridor with far less fury to the mess hall where his brother was waiting for him.

He was letting all of this get to him more than he should.

Slagging moody jets were stressing him with all their moping about these past cycles in particular. That had to be it.

_/Sides...?/_

_/Forget it Bro... I'm almost there. Save me some high grade wouldja?/_

 

* * *

  


The crash of his frame falling heavily onto the deck of the medbay still rang in his audials even as his processor finished booting up and began to analyze what had just happened. Evidently Ratchet's right leg had buckled under him as his pede had rolled inwards due to it striking the floor at an awkward angle. In his haste, he had apparently not set it down firmly on the deck plating before his weight had followed, and it had found itself unable to properly support his bulky frame. The delightful laws of physics had then demanded that inertia continue to carry his frame in its frantic lurch forward despite his frenzied attempt to defy it. His optics were only powered halfway on and he had groped forward blindly in a failed attempt to catch himself on the door as its hydraulics had obliging caused it to slide open, and with a shrill screech of metal on metal as his hand was unable to find an appropriate purchase and slid down the inside of the door's smooth metal frame, he had wound up sprawled in the most undignified heap of his career on the floor just outside his office.

A tiny part of his processor had noted the positively horrified look on Medix's faceplates as the young medic leapt up from his post at the triage desk, but that was filed away for him to deal with later. His auto-repair systems could scream at him for the abuse later as well. With the single-mindedness of a seasoned war medic he shoved himself up just enough to get his pedes back under him and resumed his mad sprint, albeit this time with a decidedly noticeable list to the right.

Slagging cracked ankle strut could frag itself to the pit right now.

Again he collided with the wall, although this time the list to his gait had caused him to strike the wall just to the right of the door, which made him curse avidly as he flung himself to the left side where the entry keypad was. The doors parted after his second attempt to punch in the correct key code, and the shrill alarms of angry monitoring equipment made his small staff freeze in place turning his medbay into a farce of a statue garden.

They stayed frozen in place even after the doors had closed behind him. They might not have the experience to know what to do when those alarms went off, but they knew what it meant for the tiny patient in the heavily secured room when they did, and more importantly, they knew what it meant when the bleeping of a medical monitor turned their CMO into a deranged lunatic whose way you did not want to be in if you valued the continued flicker of your spark.

Medix dropped back down into his seat, shut his optics, and began to pray to Primus.

Clamp and Graft just stared palely at the shut door, too inexperienced and frightened by their calm - at least when it came to medical procedures - and all-knowing mentor's shocking behavior to even begin to process what they should do next. Not surprising really. The two civilian medics had barely qualified as assistants and were lacking a frightening amount of medical knowledge and experience to be of any real use as of yet. They were still standing there like that when Pharma barreled in the main bay doors and sent them both flying into graceless sprawls like bowling pins.

Medix only prayed harder when the quiet medic didn't even have an apology for the two as he disappeared into the Doom Room after Ratchet.

 

* * *

  


The private ward was very dimly lit, though the flashing warnings on the various monitors would wash it in different colors every few kliks. The lights in these critical care rooms were programmed to follow a schedule appropriate to the recharge cycles of the patient occupying them, and first frames spent 3/4 of their time in recharge, so Ratchet had grown accustomed to the somber darkness that nearly always shrouded the room.

Three monitors were flashing erratically at him as his harried optics scanned them all, their screens alternating between scrolling sensory readings and the brightly colored alerts that were designed to attract the immediate attention of even the dullest of interns. Naturally, that made them gregariously offensive to the optic of the seasoned medic who could spot the anomalous readings within astro-seconds of their optics focusing on any monitor.

He continued his mad dash and flung himself forward to the berth where his large hands scooped the tiny frame up and into the air without a second of hesitation, though a part of his processor sobbed at the way the tiny thing draped over them like a limp and lifeless rag doll. A frighteningly fragile black and white rag doll draped in glaring contrast against the scuffed and faded red paint of his hands. A quick pivot of his hips and the scalding burden was dropped onto the top of the vat of frozen cryo gel that Wheeljack had setup for this very purpose.

The gel sizzled and the tiny frame's joints popped and hissed as he sunk down into it, melting a liquid filled tunnel for himself that quickly engulfed him in a blue-tinted frosty cocoon. The door's hydraulics hissed behind him and heralded another arrival, but Ratchet's optics never left the thermal read outs as he watched the gel do its work dissipating the excess heat and the levels dipped down and out of the critical red zone. Behind him, Pharma bolted in and around the berth, his light blue optics quickly scanning over all the monitors before he darted over to the energy siphon unit that Ratchet's actions had hastily unplugged the sparkling from when he moved him. With easy experience he began to disconnect the remaining wires that connected it to the sparkling's frame as well as those that led out to the berth's monitors and the shrieking alarms died off one by one as they no longer had read outs to be alarmed over.

"Not another one..."

Both medics' optics flitted up to see Wheeljack and Perceptor standing dejectedly in the doorway, their vents laboring hard to cool their frames. The crestfallen look on the engineer's face and the gray tinge to the lights of his vocalizer fins betrayed how optimistic he had truly been that the last round of carefully calculated adjustments would be the final as well.

"I'm afraid that's what it looks like." Pharma murmured softly without looking up from his scanners. He had moved away from the disconnected unit and was already scanning his patient and processing the amount of heat damage the tiny frame had sustained. A datapad was unsubspaced and nimble orange fingers tapped away at a sadly growing list of components which had been too badly damaged by the temperature spike to be repaired to full functional status by the cryo chamber alone and would instead need the medics to painstakingly remove and replace one by one.

Which meant more time in medical stasis.

Which meant more risks for permanent processor damage.

Which meant the odds of their ever seeing those tiny optics light up and look up at them were dwindling away more and more with every passing groon.

"I'm sorry Jack." Ratchet's voice was soft and strained as he stumbled back to the spare berth and sat heavily upon it, unable to hide his exhaustion and more than willing to entrust this part of the bitlet's care to his old friend. The other three exchanged looks of concern that were completely missed by the chief medic, and the engineer struggled to plaster a more cheerful light to his optics.

"Nah Ratch don't be... I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. You're the one who has to deal with my mistakes and let's face it... I should have realized this wouldn't work after it failed the second time. Little bit here produces more energy at a faster rate than it can siphon no matter how I upgrade or reinforce it. I shoulda known Prowl's too stubborn to ever let me win with just with a few tweaks to the same old gimmick."

"Yes that would seem to be an accurate assessment." Perceptor glanced up from the open hatch on the siphoning unit from which he had begun to pull out blackened and charred bits of electronics that the two medics could not even begin to name. "It is not just the rate of output, but it would seem that there is a perpetual element of flux in its intensity which this device's design is simply too static to appropriately compensate for. While the siphoning technique was satisfactory for the overall reduction of excess charge, it was not able to adjust according to the highly variable current intensity level of the spark itself. Simply increasing it's draw a third time would likely have the adverse advent of overdrawing on the spark during periods of lower output."

"Wait... You aren't suggesting that this could have drained his spark into extinguishing, are you?" Pharma and Ratchet's optics were nearly white as their tension levels increased exponentially It was nearly audible as their processors locked onto the bits of Perceptor's analysis that they readily grasped and ground out the consequences for their patient.

Wheeljack's vocalizer lights flickered in embarrassment. "Yeah... I... uh... guess I should have really put some more thought into... um... yeah..."

Ratchet just stared, his mouth slightly agape while his vents clicked in heated frustration, and Pharma shook his helm in disbelief. "Sometimes I wonder how _you_ managed to survive all this time much less any mech you're trying to _help_."

"Aw come on now Rx, it ain't that bad all the time... well maybe most of the time... But certainly not _all_ of the time. Besides I always come through when it _really_ counts." Wheeljack shifted his weight from pede to pede as he fidgeted nervously, though his optics remained locked on the open hatch of the device and followed Perceptor's every move to simultaneously analyze the system's fail points and develop a new one.

Pharma managed a weak smile as he turned away from them and moved to the back of the room to the row of cabinets inset in the wall. Metallic clinks, the occasional clank, and rustling of varied materials as he dug through a supply cabinet and pulled out several spools of wiring. He said nothing in reply and instead focused on his task as he sorted through the lengths and gauges that he and Ratchet would be installing into their patient shortly. He knew Jack was just trying to use the chatter to keep his own nerves from fraying, the same way Ratchet would normally be cursing and raving at his patient right about now with a fervor that would ordinarily redefine the level of censorship that he would need to be in the presence of sparklings.

Too bad nurture protocols kicked on in every mech when they were around first framers. He could understand why it was necessary to inhibit most mechs enthusiasm around the fragile bitlets with their total lack of reinforcement and their developing social protocols which did not include survival instincts beyond desiring their caretakers' comfort and full tanks of energon, but it made little sense in a sparked medic who already had their own set of sparkling protocols. The core programming overrides that the bitlets kept triggering in their senior medic were seriously glitching Ratchet out thanks to the dampening effect they had on his preferred coping mechanisms and the stress was beginning to tell.

Pharma's optics flitted briefly towards his old friend and took in the dejected sag of his pauldrons, the dullness of his finish, and the creaking of his joints and hydraulics with every movement. Yes, he would definitely need to convince Ratchet to consent to being a patient long enough to allow him to do a full tune up. Not to mention he was quite certain the medic's movements had been off somehow when he had turned to sit on the spare berth. Listing? He hadn't put enough weight on his... right...? Yes, definitely his right pede.

But the bitlet had to come first, and not just because Ratchet would skin his plating from his frame with a potato peeler if he dared to suggest otherwise.

"Jack would you get out 32.1 meters of the 18 thread, 26 gauge silver wiring, 18.6 of the 24 thread 20 gauge, and 8.9 of the 32 thread 12 gauge from the cabinet behind you?"

The engineer cringed as he pulled the requested elements out of the supply cabinet that they had stocked for the bitlet's exclusive use and lay them out on the surgical berth beside the copper elements Pharma had already gathered. "His sensory network got that fragged huh? Slag it I'm sorry guys... Maybe you should try and see if someone else can work out something better... My record really is speaking for itself right now."

"Wheeljack, there is little benefit to such emotional displays, either in ascertaining the solution to our predicament or to ensuring the ongoing welfare of their patient." Perceptor clipped tersely as he continued to poke about the siphon. "If you were not already the most qualified engineer for the task then it simply would not have been assigned to you in the first place. It is the nature of scientific discovery that failure is inevitable when facing unknown variables of such complexity which have never been documented prior. There is no shame _and_ no blame in failure unless you choose to fail to continue striving to discover the appropriate solution. There is one, or Primus would not have allowed Ratchet to save his spark in the first place. It is up to us to discover it and, Primus willing, it will be with sufficient haste that our current patient will benefit from our discoveries."

"He's right Jack." With a groan, Ratchet's frame creaked ominously as he stood and began measuring out shorter segments of the wiring and cutting and arranging them in batches by gauge and length without ever looking up to meet the engineer's optics. "We only ever fail when we stop trying to succeed. Perce, you'd better get that filthy pile of burnt scrap out of here this instant. You're contaminating my sterile surgical berth with all that soot and char and I won't have your filthy particulate scrap junking up my patient's internals when we start replacing all this wiring or so help me I'll personally oversee you cleaning it all out spec by spec with nano-pincers."

"My sincerest apologies Ratchet. I may have been slightly overzealous in my desire to discover the system's failure points." Pharma dipped his helm to hide the slight smile that twinkled in his optics at the tone of the scientist's voice. Perceptor had absolutely done that on purpose to test Ratchet's reaction after seeing his apathetic behavior. It was mildly concerning that it had taken Ratchet this long to banish the mess from his sterile domain, but still reassuring that he was snapping back. He was sure the red mech was smiling too, but didn't dare glance over lest something in the CMO snap and cause him to crash over the prohibitive coding that prevented his typical tirades.

"Wheeljack? After you."

The engineers vocalizer fins flashed a silent 'good luck' at Pharma, who tipped his helm slightly in acknowledgement but didn't look up from the replacement cooling pump he was adjusting in preparation for the procedure.

"You two have about six groons before we'll be ready to take him out of stasis lock. You'd better have something ready by then. First frame sparks don't handle stasis well before they start to degrade and I don't have enough staff that I trust are trained well enough to manually siphon around the clock."

"Please!" Wheeljack winked saucily as he stepped outside, his parting words making it through just before the doors swished shut. "Not only will it be ready, but it will be fully functional too!"

Beside him, in the brightly lit medbay, Perceptor sighed and let his own pauldrons sink low against his frame in exhausted dejection. "As fervently as I want you to say otherwise, you haven't a clue what to try next, do you?"

"I was really hoping that you would have something for me to work with instead of trying to start from scratch." The engineer's vocal fins flickered dimly as he rubbed a hand over his slack faceplates and sighed.

"Not even a vague hypothesis. I have concluded that I do not believe it is physically possible to design a siphon that would be able to constantly self-adjust to his fluctuating spark output. At least nothing that would succeed short of having a perpetual caretaker following him around and making manual adjustments to its draw."

"Same here."

With a sigh, the two turned and trudged towards the doors. From his desk where he had silently watched the entire exchange, Medix looked up from his datapad and cleared his throat nervously.

"Sirs? If I may...?"

Wheeljack paused and quirked his head inquisitively at the new medic. He was apparently quite good, though more of a family practice medic than a field gore and frame rebuilding medic, considering he had spent the duration of the war safely squirreled away on Paradron.

"I... I couldn't help but overhear... Correct me if I am mistaken but the issue at hand is that Commender Prowl's spark was intended to power a high-demand battle computer and his TAC-net across a split-vault processor in addition to powering the mech himself."

"That is an accurate assessment of his spark's output." Perceptor inclined his head in acknowledgement. "As he was not traditionally sparked he did not progress through the stages of spark development which a typical sparkling would. Although reduced in size, the output of his current spark is proportional to that of his standard sized spark and is currently 7.3 times that of the other sparkling's combined."

Medix blinked in obvious surprise at the sheer volume of energy that would equate to. "I... um... Well I was wondering... If draining his spark is not reliable due to variable output, what about using its excess energy to charge something that could absorb variable input instead and use a threshold regulator to prevent the amount of charge needed to maintain proper frame function from being sapped off?"

For several breems both Wheeljack and Perceptor stood there staring dumbly at the orange and white medic, who cringed apologetically, misinterpreting their silence as being appalled by his ignorance.

"I mean... I'm not all that experienced in electrical components... and um... I didn't really study spark mechanics... so um..."

"That's fragging brilliant." Wheeljack breathed, and then both bolted out the door and left the medic standing there in stunned silence, though his faceplates did flush slightly in pleasure at the praise before he returned to his work.


	13. Chapter 13

"Good orn Groove." Medix smiled warmly at the small scout as he stood and came around the desk to stoop down to greet his tinier companion. "And to you too, First Aid."

The bitlet smiled shyly around the thumb that was firmly lodged in his mouth, and Medix grinned widely as he winked up slyly at Groove.

"It's too bad you haven't a free hand..." He lamented theatrically, and Groove tightened his hold on the little medic's other hand to prevent him from using that one instead of the one attached to his oh so tasty thumb. Medix might not be Ratchet, that was for sure, but he was a good doc and he was _very_ good with the bitlets. The friendly medic had the easiest time of all the medbay staff to get them to comply with these daily checkups. Take now for instance, with First Aid obsessed over his preference for his thumb over energon, like magic, a bright blue energon goodie appeared in the medic's hand, and the little bitlet's beautiful optics glowed with excitement as they locked on to it like helm-seeking projectiles.

"I had this extra goodie in my sub space but after my ration this orn my tank was just too full to eat it myself... It would be such a shame for such a lovely goodie to just go to waste... Do you think you could manage to eat it for me Groove?"

Groove grinned as his little brother's hand tightened convulsively in his and the little mech tensed anxiously, his optics never moving from the shiny goodie though he was obviously all audials as he craned his head up to see his big brother's response. With a remarkable show of strength, Groove ignored the huge blue cyber-puppy optics that First Aid was notoriously skillful at unleashing.

"Oh no I couldn't possibly eat it. My tanks are sooo full already I wouldn't want to waste it... If only we knew of some mech who liked energon goodies and didn't already have a full tank..."

First Aid squirmed silently, and those huge baby blues stared pleadingly up at his brother, who pointedly ignored the irresistibly adorable gaze and stoically walled up his end of the gestalt bond. The mechlet was extremely difficult to coax into vocalizing anything, which all of the medical staff had assured them was perfectly normal for such a young gestalt. They had all explained to each of them in turn that in First Aid's processor, every mech could hear him the same way his brothers could, so he did not understand the necessity to vocalize his responses. It was something all gestalts had to be taught to do, though none of them actually remembered going through it for themselves.

Groove had almost keened the first time they had walked him through this act. The desperate pleas for the goodie combined with the sobs and terror over being ignored had assaulted him through the bond like so many tiny shards of energy slicing through him from a photon grenade.

But it had worked. Then, just as now, the tiny sparkling had finally succumbed to the tantalizing presence of the goodie and finally released his thumb from its perpetual lodging in his mouth to shyly ask for it.

"May I have it?"

"Oh, First Aid! I almost forgot you were there you were being so quiet!" Medix beamed and quickly took the hand that had been freed. "Well that will depend, what level is your tank at right now my little bitty-boo?"

The small white brow furrowed in concentration as his processor slowly searched out the requested information. When he did find it, his smile positively glowed with pride at his latest accomplishment. "It's green, but only halfway and not all the way so that means I have enough room in my tank to fit it, right?"

"Oh I see. Well now that would make it right around 80% so I suppose you would have just the right amount of room in your tank to fit this entire goodie in. Let's see then, have you been very good for your brothers?"

The bitlet nodded solemnly as they walked him over to one of the berths and, as each adult went to opposite sides, lifted him high into the air to swing him up onto it. Little pedes kicked with pleasure and he squealed in delight as he flew through the air.

"Again! Again!"

"First let me see your hands."

Obediently he stuck out his hands, palms up and let the medic turn them this way and that.

"Oh yes very good... Let's see..." Medix expertly flexed each tiny digit to examine the joints as he counted. "One... two... three... four... five... fingers... Why yes that sounds right... Oh and here are five more... Excellent... But can they all wiggle like little mineral worms?"

In reply First Aid lifted them up in front of his face and wriggled.

"Oh my... What do you think Groove? Did that look like a mineral worm wiggle or a tickle bot wriggle?"

"Well there's only one way to know for sure." Groove grinned wickedly and scooped his little brother up, his own fingers wriggling madly against the little mech's sides. First Aid writhed silently as he reverted back to the gestalt bond for all his communication, and Groove mercilessly persisted in his tickle attack.

"Oh my what a terrible tickle mech you make Groove. So what do you say First Aid, were those tickle bot wriggles you were making?" The orange and white medic was pensive as he watched the little bitlet's facial expression contort from playful laughter to painful gasping, though he was quiet through the entire exchange. "Hmm... I suppose it is hard to tell sometimes. Well you be sure to let me know when you're sure which one it was. You'll tell me when you have the answer, won't you First Aid?"

Across from him Groove's expression was tense as the stress slowly swelled into a desperate panic from the silent bombardment that was likely being communicated quite vocally through the gestalt bond, and Medix gestured encouragingly for him to continue.

"I'm not too sure which it was myself... But my... Groove you must be using up so much energy pretending to be a tickle bot... Are you sure you don't have room in your tanks for my energon goodie now?"

The bitlet gasped at that and after a few seconds of binary clicking managed to poperly reactivate his vocalizer. "No don't... I... want... it..."

"OH! There you are bitlet! I almost forgot you were here you were so quiet again! You must remember to speak up around the big bots if you want to be heard." With a relieved sigh, Groove let the exhausted bitlet slide out of his grasp and back onto the berth where he sprawled on his back and his tiny vents heaved and clacked erratically trying to cool his little overheated frame.

"Now then. Shall we keep going? Can you kick my hands? Good good... and now pump them up and down with your legs like a coolant tower? Oh my that is _excellent_ pumping. Are you sure you're not a coolant tower in disguise?"

The bitlet giggled and shook his head silently.

"Yes? You ARE a coolant tower in disguise? I knew it!"

"No! I'm a little mech not a coolant tower!"

"Ah ha! There is your vocalizer. I knew you had one hidden in there somewhere." The gentle banter continued as Medix coaxed the bitlet through each playfully concealed test, at the end of which the bitlet was rewarded with the much sought after goodie.

"Thank you." The shy murmur was barely audible around the corner of the goodie that he was sucking on, and Medix patted him on the helm approvingly.

"You are very welcome my little bitlet-smidgelet. Now you wait here while I take Groove to get your supplements." Across the room as he pretended to rummage in cabinets, Medix grew serious again as they watched the bitlet who was too engrossed in his goodie to notice them discussing him. "His movements are smoothing out very nicely, and I don't think he will need any further frame maintenance. It doesn't look like he participates in any of the rough housing that Ironhide and Springer are prone to."

"No he's very quiet. Hot Spot is worried about how he keeps chewing on his thumbs though. All the paint nanites are gone."

"There's no harm in that. His tanks will break them down very quickly without harm. They are programmed to deactivate once they lose contact with the outer surface of the frame and his auto repair immediately recycles them. I honestly haven't seen anything quite like it before though, at least not in Cybertronians..."

"Should we be worried?"

"Is he refusing to do other things with his hands?"

Groove frowned. "Well, he won't touch things he thinks are dirty..."

"But will he handle his own energon cubes and wield his own scrub brush in the wash racks?"

"Yeah he does those just fine."

"No complaints about getting under the solvent? Eating well?" Groove nodded. "I don't think there's anything to be concerned with then. Keep trying to encourage him to vocalize outside of the gestalt bond for now. He was very accurate about his tank levels using the color read outs. You can start working on his numeral recognition in data readouts, but don't worry if he doesn't pay it much attention. It's more to point it out to him so that he can begin to recognize them as familiar."

Groove nodded, and the two turned and walked back to the berth where they were surprised to see Ratchet now chatting with the bitlet. The old medic seemed even older, and his voice was lower and softer than he had ever heard it. Primus only knew how much recharge he'd had since they got here.

"I have the results of his physical if you would like to review them before he leaves." Medix inclined his helm respectfully and the old medic snorted.

"Do you think you did something wrong?"

"No, I-"

"Forget something important?"

"No, it-"

"Then submit it like a normal chart filing. You are not a med student here. Start acting like a medic."

Groove struggled to hide his grin as Medix hastily nodded and retreated to his desk to do as he'd been told. He would have to remember to tell the poor bot later that that was pretty high praise coming from the Hatchet. Poor guy probably didn't realize he wasn't being yelled at.

Ratchet smiled fondly down at his miniaturized assistant and knuckled his helm gently. "I see his medical programming has already kicked in."

"What do you mean?"

Ratchet chuckled and turned one of First Aid's hands around to prominently display the shiny silver metal of his exposed thumbs. "I did it too until oh... My... I think it was my third or fourth software upgrade... So probably until about halfway into my second frame."

Groove frowned. "Medical programming makes you chew on your thumbs?"

Ratchet guffawed loudly and waved his staff in closer.

"Is that the best explanation that this lot could come up with for you? Come on now then. What do you all think this is?" He arched an optic ridge primly as he held out First Aid's hand. The bitlet, happily involved with his goodie, ignored them all as they stepped forward.

Graft hesitated, but stepped forward first. "A defect in the priming of the surface prior to applying paint nanites?"

Ratchet said absolutely nothing, and his faceplates remained perfectly still as he turned to his next student to get their answer before offering any sort of correction or prompting.

Clamp flushed and fidgeted under the CMO's stern gaze, and stared hard at the bitlet's hand as he stammered for an answer. "Psychological... maybe? A sign of stress over changes in his environment?"

The CMO said nothing once again and arched a brow at Medix who straightened.

"The nanites are detaching naturally over time as a result of the constant friction from his glossa, and there are no other sites of detachment so defects in the surface bonding, priming, or the nanites themselves are extremely unlikely. Psychological stress would manifest with more pronounced damage such as denting from his dentae and obsessive compulsive behaviors which would involve the hands as a primary focal point. Since he is showing no signs of either, then that is extremely improbable." Ratchet nodded in confirmation and the other two students nodded as they quickly filed the information away. "I don't know why he is doing it, but I don't believe it is harmful to his systems in any way."

"You're correct about that last part. It's beneficial actually."

Medix frowned. "Beneficial...?"

"First Aid, like myself, is a sparked medic. We were sparked with our core programming keyed to that function and _active_ in our first frames, as opposed to it activating as we received our programming upgrades later on in our second and third frames. In a typical first frame sparkling, what can you tell me about sensory relays?"

"They're incomplete. The base pathways are present and functional, but the finer arrays are dormant until later programming upgrades activate the software that is capable of interpreting and processing the information that they provide." Graft smiled at Ratchet's encouraging nod.

"That's true except in first frames who are sparked to their function. The relays are active, however the sensory input is interpreted as just static feedback until the programming upgrades to process it are installed. In a medic, our hands have the greatest proportion of our finer sensor arrays, and that static feedback creates a rather annoying electrical surge that can build to an unpleasant tingle that can potentially build up to be quite painful if it's not periodically discharged."

"Oh! Our oral plating has the most static dispersal plating per cubic inch of anywhere else on our frames to protect our tanks inadvertant ignition from static discharge!" Clamp gasped as the realization struck him.

"Exactly. He is sucking on his thumb to remove that excess charge and he will continue to do so until he receives the programming to allow those pathways to process. Nothing to worry about, but with any other sparkling you would want to alert their caretakers to begin to prepare for medically oriented upgrades and training."

Groove stared at the medics as they grinned at the new tidbits of knowledge, and Ratchet handed him his tiny prodigy of a brother. When First Aid was back to normal he would have to tell him about this... It would make him so pleased to know that he was a born medic of Ratchet's caliber and he couldn't quite quash the vain pride that swelled up in his spark to think that his brother was born to be a great medic, unlike the other three who were trained to be good medics.

"Now then, why don't you head on out and one of your other brothers can bring in the next pit-spawned terror." With a final pat of the sparkling's helm, Ratchet continued his wayward limp on to his office.

  


* * *

 

"About time."

The voice flowed from the darkness of the room in a fluid baritone, and the CMO started in surprise as his sensors flared reflexively. Behind the desk... He cursed himself mentally at how long it took his processor to identify what should have been a readily recognizable voice and forced himself to relax. He really was too damn undercharged to be dealing with these half-sparked idiots right now.

"Pharma what have I told you about my office."

The other medic ignored his question and instead pulled Ratchet forward and lead him to his small berth.

"Aside from the fact that you _live_ here? Little else that I care to recall. Since at this time these are being used predominantly as your quarters, I am hereby pulling rank and officially documenting this as a house call. You are off duty and if you dare to protest I will call in the Prime, the Terror Twins, and even those blasted Wreckers if that's what it takes to hold you down for the duration of your repairs."

Ratchet started to open his mouth to snap out something vicious in reply, but was cut off by a sharp intake from his own vents and a low grunt was all that he could manage as the other medic had already honed in on his cracked ankle strut. For the love of frag why couldn't they have decided to rehabilitate one of his dimmer peers? Surely there was still one or two out there still functional enough to provide adequate medical care yet dumb enough that when he told them to slag off and get out they would do just that.

"First rule of triage..." Pharma's optics locked onto his and a slight smile quirked at his mouth plates. Even before he finished the line, Ratchet found himself relaxing as he also recalled their favorite professor's favorite catch phrase. "A dead medic saves no one."

Ratchet gritted his denta as the fingers deftly reset the strut and leaned his helm back against the wall and allowed Pharma to do his work. Primus is had been such a long time since they had worked together. A part of him cringed, remembering the rather terrifying medic from Delphi, but he had personally overseen Chromedome's mnemosurgical excision of those memories and the implantation of one where the medic had, after sustaining severe damage when the transport crashed prior to arriving on the damned planet, spent the following millenia in deep stasis awaiting rescue.

Pharma had cursed at the trial that he didn't want special treatment. Even the Council had agreed, but they had all been forced to admit to reality as well. Pharma was one of only a scant handful of classically trained medics still online, and he was a brilliant surgeon on top of that. Even more compelling was the sad fact that Ratchet was only one mech who would never have enough time to treat the current population, much less train enough medics to handle a rebuilding population.

Rehabilitation it was.

"You're right." He murmured finally with a wince. "Except that this won't kill me."

"Of course I'm right. When have you ever known me to be wrong? And you say it won't kill you until you list off a crossway and find yourself falling into a refuse canyon from which you are never seen or heard from again."

Ratchet smiled weakly and shuttered his optics to block out the vile answers that his processor pulled up unbidden.

"There's a first time for everything."

"Well hold onto that thought and save it for the real patients. You don't count. Primus you piss oil and vent fumes over those two frontliners of yours slagging themselves up without a care for their own frame integrity, and yet here you are doing the exact same thing to yourself." Pharma's fingers flew nimbly, his fingertips transforming out into various tools which blurred together as he rapidly tightened and realigned the joint in a full tune up with one hand while the other effortlessly fused the cracked strut shut and reinforced it with a cross-strut. "This is positively abysmal... Don't tell me you're so old now you can no longer bend down to reach your own feet for a bit of routine maintenance?"

Ratchet snorted and swatted half-sparkedly at his helm. "Don't you sass me you lazy aft. I've been repairing a slagging war with bailing twine and paperclips for centuries now while you had a nice nap."

"Well, there's your problem. Sub-standard off world materials. There, how's that?"

Ratchet sighed and rotated then flexed his pede as was expected of him. "Couldn't have done it better myself."

"Of course not." The medic leaned back and smugly surveyed his repairs. "If you'd done it yourself there's no way it could have been better."

"Same old Pharma..."

"Same old Ratchet." He retorted smartly. "Now, I shouldn't have to tell you, but since it's you, I suppose that I actually do have to. Minimum of 4 groons recharge per cycle while your auto-repair finishes the integration. No lifting beyond 1.2 tons until the cross-strut solidifies. No running, jumping, leaping, twirling, falling, skidding, or fragging in the wash racks until the strut is fully cleared. We both know you'll just fall and crack it again so mute it and deal like the old rust heap you are. And just where do you think you're going?"

Ratchet grimaced and pulled his face into a mock glower. "I'm not going to get any recharging done in here with your big mouth running non-stop. I'll be in the spare berth with Prowl if you need me for anything."

"No monitoring patients instead of recharging either!"

"He doesn't blabber on like you do."

"He also doesn't tell you to to quit working either."

Ratchet winced as he punched in the code to the sparkling's room and let the door close behind him on Pharma's disapproving stare.

Pharma hadn't gotten to work with Prowl the way he had, or the medic would have known how damn near impossible it was to normally get the Praxian to stop working.

Now though...

Ratchet sighed and hesitated by the empty berth, then moved past it to sit in the chair by the bitlet's berthside. He hadn't exactly said when he was going to recharge in here, so he might as well check on how his new sensory net was integrating before Jack got back to them with his new siphon.

A few breems of work wouldn't hurt anything...


	14. Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the lapse. I'm working 75-80 hours a week, but that will hopefully ease soon. :) Until then, please enjoy.
> 
> * * *

Third side street south of the embassy, turn down to the right, fourth building to his left, second door on the right with the red latch. Not out in plain sight, but also not too hard to find. From the outside the slender gaps between the metal shutters which now hung where glass panels had once gleamed, thread-like slivers of golden light peeped through to the outside world, testifying to the life that pulsed inside.  
  
With a deliberate vent, Jazz stepped up and flipped the antiquated latch, then vented again before he finally gave the heavy door a gentle push. The hinges groaned and bared an empty hallway to view, at the end of which a scuffed green door beckoned silently in welcome. Millenia as a spy subconsciously had him picking his way down the hall in a manner so as to avoid the broken glass and loose composite tiles which would have given away his presence.  
  
Some habits died hard.  
  
Others...  
  
He winced perceptibly as the door swung wide and the room beyond slammed hard into his sensitive audials with the vicious roar of a thronging crowd. Of course to him it sounded more like an air raid in the middle of a mine field during a meteor storm. Slag that was stupid of him. Always turn your audial input sensors down as you enter a public place, then back up selectively. More control. Less feedback. No buzzing in the helm like he had right now. Lesson number one when you first received the finer upgrades reserved for spec ops and intel.  
  
As the static cleared though and he could get a feel for the place, Jazz quirked an optic ridge in silent approval of the scene laid out before him. The former saboteur slid unnoticed through the thronging crowd of off duty mechs with the ease of one used to not being seen even when in plain sight and drank in every detail. The mechs surrounding him milled about in easy camaraderie, and the room lacked the crackling tension that had begun to perverse every other place he had used to love in Iacon. It had come as no surprise to him when he had seen the wreck of a city, and he had quickly quashed that tiny irrational voice in the back of his processor that wished some teeny part of the place he had once called home might still be as it was back in the vorns when he had loved it.  
  
The simple truth of the matter was that war changed you all the way down to the very core of your spark whether you wanted it to or not. You could swear it wouldn't change you, that you would hold steadfast to what you believed, but then one joor you came out of recharge and realized that it had happened to you too. Trusting mechs became reclusive and suspicious, suspicious mechs now shot first and omitted the questions, and in the end, no matter how you tried, every mech found himself alone. Either you lost them, they lost you, or someone stabbed someone else in the back with the overcharged energon blade of betrayal.  
  
It was just easier to keep your distance.  
  
You suffered less that way.  
  
Or at least that was what he told himself as he flitted effortlessly through the crowd of strangers, unnoticed and alone.  
  
This wasn't quite like the way things had been before the war, but it was better than anything he'd seen in a very long time. The mechs were filthy and tired from toiling in the middle of ground zero to try and restore their lives one tiny bit at a time, but most smiled and chatted like they were old friends catching up from life taking you your separate ways. The occasional boisterous laugh or friendly slap on a pauldron made it hard to imagine that such a devastating war was what had come between them all for so very long, and that yet another such attack was what had brought them together here today.  
  
Or maybe it just made it all the more obvious that it was less the war but the way it had made all of them think that had come between them. He let his optics flick appreciatively over a striking white mech with modest navy highlights, then chided himself. The mech was cozily tucked behind one of the tables with a very doting olive mech who was obviously their spark mate.  
  
Or at least, he told himself that that was the reason he was reproaching himself.  
  
One hand reached up and hovered subconsciously over his spark chamber as that dark cold feeling tugged at it once again, and stayed there a few clicks as though it might be able to push those feelings out and away from himself. It usually passed, but this time it clung stubbornly to his spark chamber, mocking him.  
  
What was he doing here anyway?  
  
He needed to know about these reports and inspections, but nowhere was it mandated that he had to be the one out here doing them himself. He could easily have delegated this task to someone better suited to the organization and paperwork, and just perused the summaries they sent back to him instead.  
  
That always meant Prowl, or a perfectly suited team assigned by Prowl.  
  
Or if Prowl was completely and truly unavailable, then Ultra Magnus. That had happened perhaps once that he could actually recall. That idiot workaholic Praxian could multitask an absurd number of tasks and teams simultaneously and it was a wonder his processor hadn't melted into an unidentifiable mass of solder and circuitry from the amount of abuse and overuse he had routinely subjected it to.  
  
The cold grip tightened and he felt his spark falter in its usually steady pulsing.  
  
The falter grew more erratic as he struggled to purge the memory files that suddenly flared across his HUD.  
  
The image of that tiny smoldering frame dribbling a molten trail of hot steel as the two aerial bots were rushed into the back room of the medical ward with the alacrity of a black ops coverup.  
  
The keens of pain from the smaller jet as he struggled to keep holding onto that rapidly deteriorating bundle of parts despite the reciprocal damage and pain it was wrecking across his own frame.  
  
The crystalline flicker of sapphire flame that seemed to lick the icy core of a pale blue spark that fluttered and flared erratically through the rapidly spreading gaps in a failing frame.  
  
Primus this was such a mistake.  
  
He didn't even recall turning around, or of the way his exit went as noticed as his entrance had by a single sharp pair of optics. Nor did he really recall picking a direction, or ducking down what qualified as a side alley between some of the still semi-standing structures. He just found himself venting hard, his helm craned back against some amorphous rubble that had once served as someone's wall, while his optics stared up at the twinkling lights of the stars.  
  
When he had been a sparkling, his caretakers at the youngling center had told him that they were the disembodied sparks of the mechs who had displeased Primus and that the Council had had them banished up into the sky as an offering to Unicron. He had been so terrified of being sent up there that he had been the very image of perfect obedience from that point on until the day he learned of the trick after his third round of charity upgrades.  
  
His new adult optics had been able to zoom in and focus on the individual solar flares that created their twinkling sparkles, and he had spent joors staring in shock at the sky as he meticulously catalogued each and every light as a star, planet, or other solar body. Needless to say, there had not been a single actual spark in sight, and certainly no trace of Unicron drifting about devouring them as he pleased.  
  
That night was the first time he had run away.  
  
He'd never really stopped.  
  
If he ran fast enough, then nothing ever had time to stay the same, and then it was just to be expected that things would always change. Places, faces, things... Just pick up and run and leave everything behind and you could never lose anything because you were always too busy running towards what was coming next to replace them.  
  
You never lost that way.  
  
_But you never kept anything either._  
  
Jazz scowled at that little rational voice whispering in his audial and sighed before he pushed himself off of the wall and straightened.  
  
Then froze.  
  
The femme's carmine mouthplates curved gracefully into a bemused smile as she expertly balanced the two cubes of high grade in one hand. Who the frag taught these bots how to stand with their hand on one hip and the other angled out just right so that the curves of their exotic frames looked all the more wild and dangerous and oh so tempting? It wasn't fair to the hapless mechs who had to take it all in.  
  
And take it in he did.  
  
Thank Primus for the visually enhanced.  
  
"You look like a mech who could _really_ use a drink."  
  
Jazz stared silently at her for several long breems as his processor turned the words over and over picking and poking for every last little innuendo. He had been expecting her to say something far more... enticing... than what she finally did offer him, but that wasn't really what had caught him off guard. It was the tone she spoke them with that made him freeze and study her intently for a long klick before he responded. Her vocalizer was soft and low, the harmonics of each lovely tone smooth and soothing to his audials, while her optics were dark and flickered with the silent warmth of empathy.  
  
The optics of someone who recognized the suffering she saw in another because she had known that same pain.  
  
The sympathetic voice of one who was offering wordless understanding.  
  
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna take you up on that."  
  
And then there it was again, that brief glint of a flirtatious promise for so much more than just a sympathetic audial flit across her optics and was gone again. Probably faster than most mechs would have been able to recognize it, but thankfully, he was far from being most mechs.  
  
Once again, he thanked Primus for the visually enhanced.

* * *

  


Sunstreaker glowered at his reflexion as he continued buffing his already gleaming arm plate. He had been polishing that same spot since his brother had cut their line. As asked, he had grabbed the two requested cubes of high grade while he continued to nudge him in concern through their semi-blocked bond, but there was something peculiar and not quite right about Sideswipe's end. He couldn't quite identify what...  
  
And Primus but that got his oil boiling something fierce.  
  
He wanted to tear out into that hallway and rip the faceplate off of whoever was making his brother's emotions roil like this, but they had an agreement. Long ago they had sworn to each other to never interfere if the other closed the bond. Leave the room, leave the city, leave the entire planet if it came down to it, but never, _ever_ interfere.  
  
They had nearly killed each other once over such a misunderstanding when Sunstreaker had stepped in when Sideswipe had not intended for him to.The emotional fallout afterwards had been even worse than the actual fight and had left a gaping rift between them. It had remained a sore spot with them both for centuries before they had finally reconciled and come to their current agreement.  
  
Rotten little glitch...  
  
"Sun?"  
  
The gold mech shuttered his optics and vented slowly while he simultaneously reset his vocalizer. The only thing he wanted more than than the violent death of whoever was irking his brother was to not upset the owner of that timid little voice.  
  
"Hey Blue." His face flickered briefly into some sort of mutant hybrid between a smile and a grimace, which would most likely have warded off any other mech on the base, and he nodded at the empty chair to his left.  
  
It hurt. It hurt something fierce in some deep dark place he couldn't name or locate when his brother did this to him. Sideswipe was the open one. His end was always a perpetual flow of emotional nonsense that was soothing. When he shut it off like this, then Sunstreaker was forced to face that empty stillness inside of himself. Why did it hurt so much to feel absolutely nothing at all? If he could he would probably insist on having whatever part it was connected to permanently removed.  
  
Except that probably would have to be his spark.  
  
He was still using that, sort of.  
  
Bluestreak watched him with those oddly dark optics before he nodded quietly. Even then he hesitated a few more clicks before he crossed the last few meters that separated them, then hesitated yet again before he timidly sat down in the chair across from Sunstreaker.  
  
Of all the painful changes in the past meta-cycle, this was by far the worst.  
  
No one expected Bluestreak to be the chattering image of blissful denial. Not with how important Prowl was to him. Prowl had been hurt before - it _was_ kind of inevitable in a war where you were one of the most highly profiled mechs - but Bluestreak had never reacted like this.  
  
Hysterically babbling over Prowl while, as usual, Prowl amazed them all with his Primus be damned patience despite dealing with his foster sparkling playing the role of the single most horrifically unskilled nurse in all of active creation.  
  
Seething with vengeful fury at the slagger who had had the bearings to take the cheap shot or had sprung the lucky trap on the tactician as he surged forward across the battlefield like a mechanical doorwinged harpy of blue and silver deactivation that any mech with even a single byte of self-preservation would madly flee from.  
  
Seated thoughtfully in the mess hall as he cleaned and re-cleaned his rifle, with his cerulean optics eerily dark, narrowed, meticulously cold and calculating as his processor worked cunningly through sneaking out and getting even with his darling rifle no matter what the Prime or any of them said to try and convince him otherwise.  
  
But never, ever, had he just gone silent.  
  
To make matters even worse, Blue gravitated towards him like a magnet as of late. Him. The only mech in the entire slagging faction that was best known for silence, noncommittal grunts and threatening growls for 98% of his communication. What was he supposed to do or say? Every time he was the one in that mood and Sides was the one on the median slab, no one dared approach him lest they find themselves lying on the adjacent berth with their helm in their laps.  
  
Ratchet just told him to get the slag out of his medbay, and Prowl would give him the updates Ratchet wouldn't in that brisk, professional tone of his. Blue was nothing like he was though.  
  
Except now.  
  
"Sorry, Sides is being an aft..." He mumbled.  
  
Blue just shrugged and stared down at his cube. "S'okay."  
  
The entire mess was staring at them now. Fans stilled, vents slowed to reduce their noise, and all other chatter died off. He hated it. Understood it, but hated it. Every mech expected Blue to know the most right now, but he knew nothing at all. That, he understood. That was a position he had been in countless times before, although usually that role went to Swideswipe. Maybe that was why his brother was so much better at handling it than he was.  
  
Under the table, he slid his foot forward until it bumped up against Blue's, and he caught the tiniest flicker of a smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. The younger Praxian was one of a very very very select few who could recognize and appreciate being on the receiving end of what amounted to a Sunstreaker hug.  
  
"Patrolling west wall next?"  
  
"No."  
  
Sunstreaker frowned.  
  
"Different side then?"  
  
"No."  
  
That little voice seemed to curl up tinier and tinier with each reply.  
  
"Frag, you got time off?" Right now In his processor, the only thing down time came in second to as far as he was concerned was wash rack time. Naturally, nothing came in before wash rack time, although physically trouncing Megatron to the pit and back just might, in his most gorified fantasies, tie.  
  
"No."  
  
"Too bad. Heard some trader holed up down by the south wall with some nifty pre-war holo novels. Some mech Sides used to know supposedly. He could probably've gotten you a good deal. Or least, he could if the rumors are true." His mumbled trailed off towards the end and Blue was probably the only mech in the hall who heard the last few words. The blue optics flickered nervously In his direction and the Praxian chewed on his lower lip by means of response.  
  
"Blue..." Sunstreaker scowled and bit down on his own lip in consternation and dropped his vocalizer several decibels. "Blue, you know you can tell me anything. Sides might be better at... Listening... And talking.... And stuff... But I swear I wouldn't ever get mad at you for anything you said."  
  
The blue and silver helm bobbed and the foot beneath the table scraped against his own. The entire room probably heard the soft clicking of his vocalizer resetting, and the golden front liner had to bite back the urge to snarl at them all to back the frag off.  
  
"Would you..."  
  
Sunstreaker frowned and slid his foot along the Praxian's again in silent reassurance even as that horrible aching pit in his tank grew frosty with apprehension. "Sides and I'll do it. Just you name it." He wanted to sound warm and reassuring but the words came out gruff and almost threatening. More like a sparkless killer agreeing to a hit than a close friend promising emotional and moral support.  
  
He was really slag at this.  
  
For the first time in cycles, those blue optics looked up and locked onto his and Sunstreaker felt his cabling tighten as he recognized the horrible aching pain that filled them. He and his brother used to see that same pain mirrored in each other's optics every night in the gladiator pits. The kind that came with the realization that you really and truly had absolutely nothing left to lose and no longer knew what your spark kept pulsing on for.  
  
"I know..."  
  
Despite his hushed whisper, Sunstreaker didn't have to turn around to know that every mech in the room had heard Blue. They were likely all perched on the very edge of their seats straining with every byte in their processors to catch his every word.  
  
He needed to forget they were even there. Blue was the only one who mattered.  
  
"It's true."  
  
He wasn't much of a touchy feely mech, but he knew Blue was so one hand slid across the table in silent offering. Bluestreak didn't hesitate to close the gap between it and his own and clutched at it like a desperate mech drowning in the slag pits.  
  
"Ratchet..." His vents shuddered. "He says I need... to... prepare..."  
  
The entire room must have stalled at that tiny doomed confession, and fans jerked back to startled life with a deafening roar as the doors whooshed open and Sideswipe stalked in, his muttered curses breaking the agonizing silence like a strafing run as he stomped over to them and sat with a resounding fwump.  
  
It was unspeakable.  
  
Abominable really.  
  
And try as he might, he couldn't get the words out of his shocked vocalizer. Maybe it was Blue's dire confession, or maybe it was his own self conscious fretting over the deplorable state of his own finish, but he simply could not speak.  
  
So of course, it was the rotten rust infected fluid flush of a crimson minibot who blurted it out first.  
  
"Holy frag! You DO know that there are berths for that sort of thing! I mean come on!" Cliffjumper's raucous laughter was like nails on Sunstreakers already tweaked audibles. "There's swapping paint and then there's _swapping paint_!"  
  
Sideswipe blinked at them dully for a moment before the gears whirred and clicked into place and he turned his gaze downwards to take in the horrible mess of white and green paint that covered most of his torso.  
  
"And is that _Hot Rod_ 's orange on your aft? You seriously let him shaft you from behind? It's amazing the three of you didn't blow up what's left of the Arc!"  
  
The crime against paint finishes everywhere was enough to make Sunstreaker's processor crash. For once though, Sunstreaker found some merit in Tracks. The overly-upholstered hood ornament had the good grace to backhand the obnoxious red glitch into the wall.  
  
Bluestreak, oddly enough, was the only one not appalled and, miracle of Primus, even managed a tiny sliver of a strained smile as the distraction pushed him back into hopeful denial.  
  
"So... Wheeljack, huh? Looks like he got pretty kinky."

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious... Prowl, First Aid, Blaster, Springer and Ironhide were on my shuttle. Theorize away.


End file.
